This article uses data from the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY97)
provided by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The NLSY97 is a nationally representative
sample of the U.S. youth population. To reach a total sample of 8,984 respondents, NLSY97
interviewers screened 75,291 households in 147 primary sampling units that did not overlap
(a primary sampling unit is a metropolitan area or, in nonmetropolitan areas, a single county,
or group of counties). The longitudinal dataset follows the same group of respondents from
1997 (Wave 1) to 2010 (Wave 14), recording data annually. The survey contains extensive
information on respondents’ demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, family backgrounds,
and educational experiences. Because few surveys simultaneously gather data on an
individual’s financial education, family background, and financial experience, few studies
have evaluated how these three determinants of financial knowledge acquisition work
together. The rich dataset from NLSY97 and its longitudinal feature enables us to fill this
gap. Our study used 3,597 respondents from the NLSY97 dataset because these records had
valid responses for all of our study variables.