Oltre Madoff e la crisi dei mutui subprime: migliorare l'alfabetizzazione finanziaria per combattere le frodi finanziarie e promuovere la crescita economica

In this thesis I want to demonstrate the importance of financial educa8on. I will analyze Madoff’s Ponzi scheme and the subprime mortgage crisis, showing how financial illiteracy has been crucial in the wide spreading of these scams. The Madoff case displays how individuals lack of basic concepts of finance, such us the simple risk-return trade off. Even just with this liIle extra knowledge, one of the greatest scams of all 8me could have been avoided. Also, the subprime mortgage crisis brought to light many gaps in the financial educa8on not only of individual investors, but also of ins8tu8ons. It was enough to have a minimum knowledge of specula8ve bubbles to understand how much the prac8ces they were implemen8ng were dangerous. Furthermore, both situa8ons exposed a series of loopholes in regulatory reforms, most of which were addressed, but not all and s8ll today we can no8ce them. Scams similar to those of the past con8nue to happen, but now with digitaliza8on are even more difficult to monitor and control. This is why there is even more need of financial awareness.