Marta Cota

Hi! I am a tenure track Assistant Professor at the  Finance Department at Nova SBE in Lisbon. I hold a Ph.D. degree in Economics from CERGE-EI.

My research interests lie between Macroeconomics and Household Finance. I develop structural models that encompass individual expectation heterogeneity and heterogeneity in search frictions. 

My CV is linked here.                      

Working papers:

     Financial Skills and Search in the Mortgage Market (joint work with Ante Sterc) - (working version!)

This paper examines how financial literacy shapes households' mortgage decisions through a structural model of mortgage search. Using a unique U.S. dataset that integrates detailed mortgage information with objective measures of financial literacy, we find that households with lower financial literacy are 4% less likely to engage in mortgage search and end up locking in at 33 basis points higher mortgage rates. Moreover, they are 5.1 p.p. less likely to refinance, which defines a lower bound of $575 in annual mortgage overpayments.  To explore the impact of financial skills and search behavior on mortgage rate outcomes, we develop a mortgage search model that incorporates endogenous financial skill accumulation and heterogeneous search frictions. Our results show that: (i) greater mortgage access increases delinquency risks for less financially skilled households, (ii) targeted financial education can help reduce these risks, and (iii) low mortgage rates primarily benefit financially literate households through refinancing, ultimately contributing to greater consumption inequality. Finally, we find that easier mortgage access, driven by increased information availability, reinforces financial skill accumulation, suggesting that targeted policies may be more effective today than in the past.

Gender Differences in Savings over the Lifecycle: The Role of Financial Literacy, joint with Marta Morazzoni,  Maria Frech and Michael Tallent

This paper studies whether financial literacy shapes gender differences in wealth. Using data from the United States and the Netherlands, we document that women have lower financial literacy and confidence than men, are less likely to manage long-term investments within their households, and hold fewer financial assets, with the largest gaps among married agents. We build a life-cycle portfolio-choice model with endogenous financial literacy accumulation and marital dynamics centered around two wedges: a higher cost of literacy investment for married women and gender-specific perceived returns on risky assets. The calibrated model qualitatively matches untargeted life-cycle patterns in literacy and portfolio choice, accounting for a third of the gender gap  in individual financial assets. Counterfactual exercises show that early-life financial education can narrow the gender knowledge gap, and portfolio-allocation rules may offset confidence and marriage-related wedges that education may not undo, lowering the wealth gap by 6%.

Published work:

Extrapolative Expectations and Retirement Savings - The Review of Finance,  July 2025, https://doi.org/10.1093/rof/rfaf021 

Work in progress:

"Network Effects and Debt Negotiation", joint with Mauro Mastrogiaccomo and Ante Sterc

"Retirement Savings and Self-Employment in an Ageing Economy ", with Marta Morazzoni