Financial Practices Indexes.To characterize the extent of a household's participationin each type of financial-management activity, an index was constructed in which levels of cash-flowmanagement, credit management, saving, and investmentpractices were classified as ''high,'' ''medium,''or ''low.'' If households reported fewer than 25 percentof the practices, they were classified as ''low'';households reporting between 25 percent and 70 percentof the practices were classified as ''medium'';and those reporting more than 70 percent of thepractices, were classified as ''high.''[note: 7]. Households that did not pay their bills on time were classified aslow for cash-flow management regardless of any other practices theyreported for that category. [en of note.](For detailedinformation on how the indexes were constructed,see Appendix B: Indexes of Financial Practices.)Chart 1 shows the proportion of respondents scoringin the high, medium or low groups for eachindex. The cash-flow management index had the largestpercentage of respondants in the high group(66 percent), followed by the credit managementindex (45 percent), the saving index (33 percent), andthe investment index (19 percent). These initial findingssuggest that financial behaviors may be hierarchical,that is, that one may precede another. Forexample, individuals who are cash-constrained mayengage in cash-flow management practices and obtaincredit but may not save and invest.
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