Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore how students’ entrepreneurial attitudes are related to their economic attitudes regarding business, investments, savings and consumption. The study presents a new research tool to analyze the characteristics of the economic mind – the economic attitudes questionnaire.

Design/methodology/approach
The method consists of a multiple-factorial questionnaire, a verification of reliability and internal validity (exploratory and confirmation factor analyses), a quantitative survey and a correlation analysis.

Findings
Two main ways of preparing students for a market economy are identified: one is connected to entrepreneurship, and the other to rational investment and financial planning. The complex nature of economic attitudes’ interaction is confirmed: by the direct relationships between entrepreneurial attitudes of students and investment activity, and between risk and satisfaction and consumer opportunities, as well as by the negative relationships between entrepreneurial attitudes and the level of mistrust to banking structures, unwillingness to make savings, unwillingness to share and financial pessimism. The economic attitudes questionnaire was developed and it showed sufficient validity and reliability on samples of student youth.

Research limitations/implications
The study was limited to Russian students.

Originality/value
Adapting the questionnaire to other cultures will allow conducting cross-cultural research of entrepreneurial attitudes, which may be relevant in the global economy.