University lecturers and coordinators of business and economics courses around the world are faced with the challenge that beginning students in these courses have heterogeneous entry conditions in terms of personal characteristics. This article focuses on the economic knowledge of German and Japanese beginning students in a business and economics degree programme. The German and Japanese versions of the US-American Test of Economic Literacy were used for the assessment of the economic knowledge of German ( N = 901) and Japanese ( N = 571) students. The TEL consists of 45 items in two questionnaire versions and is based on 20 globally accepted core standards of economics. The analyses in this paper are based on the total score of all 45 items of the TEL as well as the subscores for the 20 standards. A special focus of this paper is on gender-specific differences in economic knowledge. While gender has a strong effect on economic knowledge in Germany, only a small number of the core standards in Japan exhibit a difference between male and female test takers. The paper concludes by applying interpretative approaches to the different findings in both countries and suggests potential methods for further research on the gender effect in economics education.

This study compares the financial knowledge of Korean ( N = 1006) and German ( N = 1346) university students. The country-specific adaptations of the US-American Test of Financial Literacy was used to assess financial knowledge. Financial knowledge can be divided into three areas (everyday money management; banking; insurance). German students show a slightly higher knowledge of everyday money management and insurance. Korean students tend to be stronger in the area banking. The paper examines the impact of gender on financial knowledge and the role of financial information gathering. A gender difference is determined in Germany, but not in Korea. Male students in Germany score higher than female students. An analysis of variance shows that Korean as well as German students who inform themselves more frequently about financial topics achieve a higher financial knowledge score. The article shows that it is possible to validly measure financial knowledge in Germany and Korea, which have different economic systems.