IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/mib/wpaper/412.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Activating women cognitive abilities: Impact of a financial literacy pilot program in India

Author

Listed:
  • Lucia Dalla Pellegrina
  • Giorgio, Di Maio
  • Paolo Landoni
  • Beatrice Rama

Abstract

This study is based on a randomized control trial (RCT) aimed at understanding the effectiveness of a financial literacy pilot program conducted in 2014-2016 at the Institute for Indian Mother and Child, a non-profit microfinance institution based near Kolkata. Significant impacts are revealed in terms of improvements in saving accumulation and punctuality in the repayment of the loan instalments for borrowers belonging to the treated group, compared to the group of borrowers who did not participated to the program. In particular, positive contribution emerges from the evolution of both the cognitive skills and the level of financial knowledge developed by the beneficiaries during the training program. Estimates provide evidence that enhancing cognitive abilities turn out to be strongly beneficial in fostering the accumulation savings, whereas financial principles also had an (although weaker) impact on stimulating a more timely reimbursement of the instalments. We conclude that the financial literacy pilot program has significantly activated women cognitive abilities, giving them the opportunity to apply them both in the course and in their businesses.

Suggested Citation

  • Lucia Dalla Pellegrina & Giorgio, Di Maio & Paolo Landoni & Beatrice Rama, 2019. "Activating women cognitive abilities: Impact of a financial literacy pilot program in India," Working Papers 412, University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics, revised May 2019.
    • Handle: RePEc:mib:wpaper:412
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://repec.dems.unimib.it/repec/pdf/mibwpaper412.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. James Heckman & Seong Hyeok Moon & Rodrigo Pinto & Peter Savelyev & Adam Yavitz, 2010. "Analyzing social experiments as implemented: A reexamination of the evidence from the HighScope Perry Preschool Program," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 1(1), pages 1-46, July.
    2. Ngo, Thi Minh-Phuong & Wahhaj, Zaki, 2012. "Microfinance and gender empowerment," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(1), pages 1-12.
    3. Lars Ivar Oppedal Berge & Kjetil Bjorvatn & Bertil Tungodden, 2015. "Human and Financial Capital for Microenterprise Development: Evidence from a Field and Lab Experiment," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(4), pages 707-722, April.
    4. James Heckman & Rodrigo Pinto & Peter Savelyev, 2013. "Understanding the Mechanisms through Which an Influential Early Childhood Program Boosted Adult Outcomes," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(6), pages 2052-2086, October.
    5. Chowdhury, Tamgid Ahmed & Mukhopadhaya, Pundarik, 2012. "Assessment of multidimensional poverty and effectiveness of microfinance-driven government and NGO projects in the rural Bangladesh," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 41(5), pages 500-512.
    6. Dean Karlan & Martin Valdivia, 2011. "Teaching Entrepreneurship: Impact of Business Training on Microfinance Clients and Institutions," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 93(2), pages 510-527, May.
    7. Heckman, James J. & Moon, Seong Hyeok & Pinto, Rodrigo & Savelyev, Peter A. & Yavitz, Adam, 2010. "The rate of return to the HighScope Perry Preschool Program," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(1-2), pages 114-128, February.
    8. Holzmann, Robert, 2010. "Bringing financial literacy and education to low and middle income countries : the need to review, adjust, and extend current wisdom," Social Protection Discussion Papers and Notes 56501, The World Bank.
    9. Godquin, Marie, 2004. "Microfinance Repayment Performance in Bangladesh: How to Improve the Allocation of Loans by MFIs," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 32(11), pages 1909-1926, November.
    10. Miriam Bruhn & Dean Karlan & Antoinette Schoar, 2010. "What Capital Is Missing in Developing Countries?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(2), pages 629-633, May.
    11. Ibtissem Baklouti, 2013. "Determinants of Microcredit Repayment: The Case of Tunisian Microfinance Bank," African Development Review, African Development Bank, vol. 25(3), pages 370-382, September.
    12. Alejandro Drexler & Greg Fischer & Antoinette Schoar, 2014. "Keeping It Simple: Financial Literacy and Rules of Thumb," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 6(2), pages 1-31, April.
    13. Robert Lensink & Roy Mersland & Nhung Thi Hong Vu & Stephen Zamore, 2018. "Do microfinance institutions benefit from integrating financial and nonfinancial services?," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(21), pages 2386-2401, May.
    14. David McKenzie & Christopher Woodruff, 2014. "What Are We Learning from Business Training and Entrepreneurship Evaluations around the Developing World?," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank Group, vol. 29(1), pages 48-82.
    15. Morduch, Jonathan, 2000. "The Microfinance Schism," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 617-629, April.
    16. Linda Mayoux, 2001. "Tackling the Down Side: Social Capital, Women’s Empowerment and Micro‐Finance in Cameroon," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 32(3), pages 435-464, June.
    17. Alam, Saad, 2012. "The Effect of Gender-Based Returns to Borrowing on Intra-Household Resource Allocation in Rural Bangladesh," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(6), pages 1164-1180.
    18. Shakil Quayes, 2015. "Outreach and performance of microfinance institutions: a panel analysis," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(18), pages 1909-1925, April.
    19. Ibtissem Baklouti, 2013. "Determinants of Microcredit Repayment: The Case of Tunisian Microfinance Bank," African Development Review, African Development Bank, vol. 25(3), pages 370-382.
    20. Robyn Eversole, 2003. "Help, risk and deceit: microentrepreneurs talk about microfinance," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 15(2), pages 179-188.
    21. James C. Brau & Gary M. Woller, 2004. "Microfinance: A Comprehensive Review of the Existing Literature," Journal of Entrepreneurial Finance, Pepperdine University, Graziadio School of Business and Management, vol. 9(1), pages 1-28, Spring.
    22. Martin, Andrew D. & Quinn, Kevin M. & Park, Jong Hee, 2011. "MCMCpack: Markov Chain Monte Carlo in R," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 42(i09).
    23. Bulte, Erwin & Lensink, Robert & Vu, Nhung, 2016. "Gender training and female empowerment: Experimental evidence from Vietnam," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 117-119.
    24. Miriam Bruhn & Bilal Zia, 2013. "Stimulating managerial capital in emerging markets: the impact of business training for young entrepreneurs," Journal of Development Effectiveness, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 5(2), pages 232-266, June.
    25. Erica Field & Seema Jayachandran & Rohini Pande, 2010. "Do Traditional Institutions Constrain Female Entrepreneurship? A Field Experiment on Business Training in India," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(2), pages 125-129, May.
    26. Aussi Sayinzoga & Erwin H. Bulte & Robert Lensink, 2016. "Financial Literacy and Financial Behaviour: Experimental Evidence from Rural Rwanda," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 126(594), pages 1571-1599, August.
    27. Nitin Bhatt & Shui–Yan Tang, 2002. "Determinants of Repayment in Microcredit: Evidence from Programs in the United States," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(2), pages 360-376, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lucia Dalla Pellegrina & Giorgio Di Maio & Paolo Landoni & Emanuele Rusinà, 2021. "Money management and entrepreneurial training in microfinance: impact on beneficiaries and institutions," Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, Springer;Fondazione Edison, vol. 38(3), pages 1049-1085, October.
    2. Go Shimada & Tetsushi Sonobe, 2021. "Impacts of management training on workers: Evidence from Central America and the Caribbean region," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(3), pages 1492-1514, August.
    3. Gutiérrez-Nieto, Begoña & Serrano-Cinca, Carlos, 2019. "20 years of research in microfinance: An information management approach," International Journal of Information Management, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 183-197.
    4. Renaud Bourlès & Anastasia Cozarenco & Dominique Henriet & Xavier Joutard, 2022. "Business Training with a Better-Informed Lender: Theory and Evidence from Microcredit in France," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 148, pages 65-108.
    5. Higuchi, Yuki & Nam, Vu Hoang & Sonobe, Tetsushi, 2015. "Sustained impacts of Kaizen training," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 189-206.
    6. Lars Ivar Oppedal Berge & Kjetil Bjorvatn & Bertil Tungodden, 2015. "Human and Financial Capital for Microenterprise Development: Evidence from a Field and Lab Experiment," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(4), pages 707-722, April.
    7. Eduardo Nakasone & Maximo Torero, 2014. "Soap Operas for Female Micro Entrepreneur Training," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 87916, Inter-American Development Bank.
    8. Stephen J. Anderson & Rajesh Chandy & Bilal Zia, 2018. "Pathways to Profits: The Impact of Marketing vs. Finance Skills on Business Performance," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(12), pages 5559-5583, December.
    9. Lahiri, Bidisha & Daramola, Richard, 2023. "Effects of credit and labor constraints on microenterprises and the unintended impact of changes in household endowments: Use of threshold estimation to detect heterogeneity," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 21-38.
    10. Sseruyange, J. & Bulte, E., 2018. "Do Incentives matter for Knowledge Diffusion? Experimental Evidence from Uganda," 2018 Conference, July 28-August 2, 2018, Vancouver, British Columbia 275896, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    11. Antonia Grohmann & Lukas Menkhoff & Helke Seitz, 2022. "The Effect of Personalized Feedback on Small Enterprises’ Finances in Uganda," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 70(3), pages 1197-1227.
    12. Axel Demenet, 2016. "Does Managerial Capital also Matter Among Micro and Small Firms in Developing Countries?," Working Papers DT/2016/12, DIAL (Développement, Institutions et Mondialisation).
    13. Robert W. Fairlie & Dean Karlan & Jonathan Zinman, 2015. "Behind the GATE Experiment: Evidence on Effects of and Rationales for Subsidized Entrepreneurship Training," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 7(2), pages 125-161, May.
    14. Andreas Georgiadis & Christos N. Pitelis, 2016. "The Impact of Employees' and Managers' Training on the Performance of Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises: Evidence from a Randomized Natural Experiment in the UK Service Sector," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 54(2), pages 409-421, June.
    15. Cho, Yoonyoung & Honorati, Maddalena, 2014. "Entrepreneurship programs in developing countries: A meta regression analysis," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 110-130.
    16. Bulte, Erwin H. & Lensink, Robert & Winkel, Anne B., 2018. "The impact of a gender and business training on income hiding: An experimental study in Vietnam," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 241-259.
    17. Gabriela Calderon & Jesse M. Cunha & Giacomo De Giorgi, 2020. "Business Literacy and Development: Evidence from a Randomized Controlled Trial in Rural Mexico," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 68(2), pages 507-540.
    18. de Mel, Suresh & McKenzie, David & Woodruff, Christopher, 2014. "Business training and female enterprise start-up, growth, and dynamics: Experimental evidence from Sri Lanka," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 199-210.
    19. Go Shimada & Tetsushi Sonobe, 2018. "Impacts of Kaizen Management on Workers: Evidence from Central America and the Caribbean Region," Working Papers 173, JICA Research Institute.
    20. Valentina A. Assenova, 2020. "Early-Stage Venture Incubation and Mentoring Promote Learning, Scaling, and Profitability Among Disadvantaged Entrepreneurs," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 31(6), pages 1560-1578, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Microfinance; financial literacy; randomized control trial; repayment performance; savings.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • I24 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Inequality
    • I28 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Government Policy
    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:mib:wpaper:412. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Matteo Pelagatti (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dpmibit.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.