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Is It Still an Econ Course? The Effect of a Standardized Personal Finance Test on the Learning of Economics

Author

Listed:
  • Stephen Day

    (Center for Economic Education, VCU School of Business)

  • Evelyn Nunes

    (Department of Economics, VCU School of Business)

  • Bruno Sultanum

    (Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond)

Abstract

We study the implications of mixing economics and personal finance standards in a high school course. Using administrative, survey, and testing data on college students, we find that learning personal finance can help the learning of economics for some students and hurt it for others. We estimate that students who received more instruction in economics score almost 5 percentage points higher on our economics test. Furthermore, we estimate the effect of being assigned a certification test in per- sonal finance as a part of this course. Taking the personal finance certification test increases economics test scores by 2.5 percentage points for the average student, but this effect is not uniform across students. The certification test significantly increases the economics scores of students with low SAT scores, while decreasing the eco- nomics scores of those with high SAT scores. Our results emphasize the potentially idiosyncratic effects of mixing economics with personal finance.

Suggested Citation

  • Stephen Day & Evelyn Nunes & Bruno Sultanum, 2022. "Is It Still an Econ Course? The Effect of a Standardized Personal Finance Test on the Learning of Economics," Working Papers 2201, VCU School of Business, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:vcu:wpaper:2201
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Personal Finance; Economics; W!se test; Learning Economics; Economic Education;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • A21 - General Economics and Teaching - - Economic Education and Teaching of Economics - - - Pre-college
    • A12 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Relation of Economics to Other Disciplines
    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • I28 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Government Policy

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