Interactive tools for personal finance literacy — helping students and citizens make better life-cycle saving and investment decisions.
USAVE ("Understanding Saving in Europe") is an Erasmus+ strategic partnership (Project ID: 2019-1-LI01-KA203-000125) that developed online courses and interactive web applications for life-cycle saving and investment literacy.
Optimal life-cycle saving and investment decisions require concepts that go beyond the time value of money and the trade-off between risk and return. Topics include human capital valuation, consumption smoothing over the lifetime, the role of insurance (disability, longevity), portfolio construction with multiple asset classes, and stochastic retirement planning under uncertainty. The project made these concepts accessible through self-paced online courses for the general public and for finance/economics students, accompanied by hands-on interactive applications.
USAVE builds on the success of UNPIE and UNPIE2 (Understanding Pensions in Europe), extending the scope from pension decisions to the full life-cycle savings problem. It is a collaboration between the University of Liechtenstein, the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, and Alguru ApS (Denmark).
Lead partner. Responsible for project coordination, curriculum design, online course development, research, and dissemination.
Project Director
Project Coordinator
Team Member
Partner institution in Italy. Contributing to course content, research on life-cycle models, and interactive application design.
Partner Lead
Team Member
Technology partner in Denmark. Developing the R software packages (usavepkg,
usavepkg2) that power the interactive applications.
R Package Developer
During the project, the partners developed self-paced online courses on life-cycle saving and investment decisions. The courses are no longer available; the interactive applications remain online.
A suite of browser-based calculators and visualizations — powered by WebR (R compiled to WebAssembly) — enabling hands-on exploration of personal finance concepts:
University of Liechtenstein, August 29, 2022. Research presentations from European universities. Team members presented the online courses and interactive software applications. Featured talk: "On the Saving Behavior of European Households" by Dr. Aicha Kharazi.
Vaduz, August 30, 2022. Last project meeting to wrap up the initiative and discuss final products, dissemination strategies, quality testing, and future organizational applications.
Copenhagen, July 22, 2022. Discussion of final tasks for online courses and software applications, finalization of the conference program, and presentation of the project paper.
Bolzano, September 3, 2021. Focus on finalizing entry-level courses and planning advanced course implementation. Planning of the upcoming Multiplier Event (conference).
Vaduz, Liechtenstein, October 11, 2019. Project launch featuring curriculum development planning and software functionality design. Definition of work packages, milestones, and the overall project timeline.
All apps run entirely in your browser using WebR — no server or installation required. Available in English and German.