**6. Discussion**

Our study of adult financial literacy in Cambodia and Viet Nam breaks new ground in two ways: (i) It marks the first implementation of the OECD/INFE survey in the so-called CLMV countries (Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, and Viet Nam); and (ii) Cambodia and Viet Nam have considerably lower levels of per capita income than the other 30 countries in OECD/INFE (2016). Generally, our study corroborates the findings of studies of other countries but uncovers some differences as well. The overall scores of financial literacy in Cambodia (11.8) and Viet Nam (12.7) are at the low end of the range seen in the other 30 countries that have implemented the OECD/INFE survey, and near those for Poland and Belarus. However, these results are relatively good when taking into account the levels of per capita income in those two countries.

Our analysis shows that that the level of education generally is highly significant and positively correlated with financial literacy in both Cambodia and Viet Nam. This holds for both the overall measure of financial literacy and the subscores for financial knowledge, financial behavior, and for savings. However, the education level was not significant for financial attitudes. These results were consistent with the findings for the other 30 countries reported in OECD/INFE (2016). These results also consistent with those of Bucher-Koenen and Lusardi (2011), and Murendo and Mutsonziwa (2017), which use different measures of financial literacy.

Respondents aged 30–60 had significantly higher overall financial literacy scores than other age groups, but the effects of age on individual subscores were less consistent or significant. In particular, there was no significant effect of age on financial attitude. This generally is consistent with the findings for the other 30 countries where age groups 30–60 generally had higher scores for both financial knowledge and financial behavior.

Interestingly, gender was not very significant for overall financial literacy in either country. The gender coefficient was not significant for Cambodia, while for Viet Nam it was significant, but only about half the average magnitude of the other 30 countries (0.18 vs. 0.32) (OECD/INFE 2016). This result differs from some other studies. For example, Lusardi and Mitchell (2014) find that men typically have higher financial literacy scores than women. While we do not have an explanation for this difference, and cultural factors are probably significant, we conjecture that differences in education levels between men and women in Cambodia and Vietnam may capture most of the gender differences in financial literacy. This issue merits further study.

The results generally showed that self-employed workers and salaried workers had higher levels of financial literacy than other employment categories in both countries, and housewives had higher levels of financial literacy in Cambodia. These results were less strong for the various subscores, but generally pointed in the same direction, especially for financial behavior.

The finding with the most important macroeconomic implications is that both financial literacy and general education levels are positively and significantly related to formal and informal savings activity, and financial literacy has an independent effect even when the general education level is corrected for. Similar to Fernandes et al. (2014) and Murendo and Mutsonziwa (2017), our result still holds when the possible endogeneity of financial literacy is corrected for by using the regional average financial literacy level as an instrumental variable. This implies that improving general education levels is important, but additional gains can be obtained by developing policies such as financial education programs that directly raise financial literacy. Such programs could have important potential impacts in terms of increasing savings in those countries.

Similarly, both financial literacy and general education levels are found to be positively and significantly related to the measure of financial inclusion. This holds in most cases even when the possible endogeneity of financial literacy is corrected by using regional average financial literacy as an instrumental variable. Increased financial inclusion means that increased savings can be made more readily available for investment activity in those countries. Again, this underlines the importance of developing policies to raise both general education and financial literacy.

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, P.J.M. and L.Q.T.; survey management, P.J.M.; econometric analysis, L.Q.T.; writing—original draft preparation, P.J.M. and L.Q.T.; writing—review and editing, P.J.M.; supervision, P.J.M.; project administration, P.J.M.

**Funding:** This research received no external funding.

**Acknowledgments:** We thank the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the National Bank of Cambodia, the State Bank of Vietnam and the Cambodia and Viet Nam resident missions of the Asian Development Bank for their support in carrying out this study. We also thank the staff of Indochina Research Ltd. for their diligent work on implementing the survey. All errors are our own.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.
