Economic competences of young adults around the world

Young adults around the world face many similar challenges. This also applies, among others, to the field of economic thinking. On the one hand, young adults have to make various economic decisions on a daily basis, for example, when shopping. On the other hand, they are confronted in various ways with different areas of economics in relation to their choice of career. As a result, a growing interest in teaching issues such as basic economic knowledge, financial literacy, or pre-vocational education (Pilz et al., 2014, 2016) and also a more in-depth assessments of the economic competences of young adults embedded in an international comparison are increasingly emerging (Happ et al., 2021; Happ and Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia, 2021; Siegfried and Walstad, 2014). The fact that there is an empirically valid, comparable construct is not a sufficient basis for a comprehensive international comparison. It should rather be the educational problems of the countries that provide the starting point for comparison. In particular, globalization developments in economic competences and common challenges in promoting these competences have motivated several comparative studies (Walstad et al., 2013; Wuttke et al., 2016). The eight studies in this issue combine the testing of economic competences with a detailed comparative analysis, including ideographic aspects (Hilker, 1962). This is the basis for “real” comparative analyses (Evans, 2020; Pilz, 2012). The combination of significant empirical results and an in-depth comparative analysis is the innovative core of the research. Therefore, the focus of the issue is on comparative papers on the economic competences of young adults from 14 countries. The eight papers are always ideographically embedded and the findings are discussed and compared in a profound manner. The link between all papers is the topic of economic competence. According to internationally well-recognized definition Weinert (2001), competence can be understood as the available or learnable cognitive abilities and skills required to successfully cope with economic problems and questions. This competent handling of problems also includes the motivational and volitional willingness and abilities associated with cognitive dispositions to deal with the problem. In the context of economics and thus of these issues, the focus is on the skills and abilities required to