Teachers play a crucial role in shaping the financial behavior and attitudes of students. Thus, a good understanding of financial concepts is essential for teachers to impart these effectively to their students. We took the case of the Philippines, representing a developing country, to evaluate and compare teachers’ financial literacy with the average population.
We constructed an index of financial literacy and used it for a two-level analysis. We linked financial attitudes, financial behavior, and financial knowledge to teachers’ level of financial literacy. The first level of analysis identified determinants of financial literacy using ordinary least squares (OLS), while the second level of analysis investigated whether teachers were more financially literate than the average population. We found that a household’s overall financial status (proxied by household income and expenses), the educational attainment of teachers, the proportion of household members who have at least a tertiary education, and the ownership of information assets, such as a television (TV), mobile/cellular phone, personal computer (PC), tablet, or laptop, significantly increase financial literacy. Overall, teachers were found to have a higher level of financial literacy than the average population.