Consumer financial vulnerability: review, synthesis, and future research agenda

Abstract

Research on consumer financial vulnerability (CFV) was especially encouraged in the aftermath of the 2007–2008 financial crisis, becoming a phenomenon of global interest to academics and policy makers. This paper reviews the existing academic literature on CFV with the aim of mapping out four research fields (i.e., the concept, the measures, the methods, and the drivers of this phenomenon) and providing a roadmap for a future research agenda for this field. To this end, we review the last two decades of academic research on households’ financial vulnerability, thereby presenting a hybrid literature review. Evidence from a comprehensive analysis of 98 academic papers suggests that this is still an emerging and highly fragmented field and, therefore, a comprehensive future research agenda is offered, including concrete suggestions for research designs and measurements. The proposal of a homogeneous definition of financial vulnerability, the consideration of measures that include subjective aspects of the phenomenon, the use of qualitative methods, and the development of more detailed theoretical and empirical research on the drivers of CFV, are among the authors’ recommendations for future research.