Financial citizenship and capital market participation in Brazil: A macro-level regional analysis

• A macro-level study of Brazil (N=27) links financial citizenship to market participation. • K-means clustering identifies two distinct regional groups: "Northern" and "Southern". • The Financial Education Index (FEI) consistently predicts participation in both regions. • Municipal Human Development Index (MHDI) predicts participation in the Southern region, but this link is broken in the Northern region. • Findings show strong regional asymmetry, suggesting policies must be tailored. This study presents a macro-level analysis of financial citizenship and capital market participation in Brazil using official data from 27 federative units. Unlike traditional individual-level surveys focused on stocks, we examine participation in both the stock market (B3) and public bonds (Tesouro Direto). K-means clustering identifies two regional groups (“Northern” and “Southern”), and OLS regressions with HC3 robust errors show that the Financial Education Index consistently predicts participation across regions. The Municipal Human Development Index strongly predicts participation in the South but not in the North, highlighting structural regional disparities. Results suggest financial citizenship policies should be tailored regionally.