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SaveWise: The impact of a real-life financial education program for ninth grade students in the Netherlands

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  • Amagir, Aisa
  • van den Brink, Henriëtte Maassen
  • Groot, Wim
  • Wilschut, Arie

Abstract

This experimental study with a pre-post and follow-up design evaluates the financial education program “SaveWise” for ninth grade students in the Netherlands (n=713). SaveWise adopts a holistic approach, emphasizing action rather than mere cognition. Benefitting from explicit instruction embedded in real-life contexts, students in the program set a personal savings goal and are coached on how to achieve it. The short-term treatment results indicated that SaveWise expanded the students’ level of financial knowledge; encouraged their intentions to save more, spend less and earn an income; and broadly improved their financial and savings behavior. The program demonstrated that it could serve as an effective and low-cost method to enhance the financial literacy of pre-vocational students, a financially vulnerable group. Although long-term effects were expressed only through financial socialization, this study offers evidence linking curricula to increased knowledge and improved behavior for a specific sample of students.

Suggested Citation

  • Amagir, Aisa & van den Brink, Henriëtte Maassen & Groot, Wim & Wilschut, Arie, 2022. "SaveWise: The impact of a real-life financial education program for ninth grade students in the Netherlands," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:beexfi:v:33:y:2022:i:c:s2214635021001490
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jbef.2021.100605
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Financial education; Financial literacy; Financial knowledge; Attitudes towards money; Financial behavior; Savings behavior; Experiment; Adolescents;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D14 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Saving; Personal Finance
    • A21 - General Economics and Teaching - - Economic Education and Teaching of Economics - - - Pre-college
    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • G53 - Financial Economics - - Household Finance - - - Financial Literacy

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