IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jeborg/v95y2013icp146-158.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The impacts of mandatory financial education: Evidence from a randomized field study

Author

Listed:
  • Collins, J. Michael

Abstract

Financial education is commonly assumed to affect knowledge and behavior, yet its impacts remain relatively untested. Very low-income families in a subsidized housing program were randomly assigned to a mandatory financial education program and tracked for 12 months. Financial education led to improvements in self-reported behaviors, but no measurable effects on savings or credit, except for participants in education expanding their use of credit, albeit with no evidence of problems in the study period. This study also illustrates the methodological issues that arise in social experiments with small samples, including non-compliance, attrition and self-report bias.

Suggested Citation

  • Collins, J. Michael, 2013. "The impacts of mandatory financial education: Evidence from a randomized field study," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 146-158.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:95:y:2013:i:c:p:146-158
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2012.08.011
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268112001795
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jebo.2012.08.011?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Richard K. Crump & V. Joseph Hotz & Guido W. Imbens & Oscar A. Mitnik, 2009. "Dealing with limited overlap in estimation of average treatment effects," Biometrika, Biometrika Trust, vol. 96(1), pages 187-199.
    2. Bernheim, B. Douglas & Garrett, Daniel M. & Maki, Dean M., 2001. "Education and saving:: The long-term effects of high school financial curriculum mandates," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(3), pages 435-465, June.
    3. Annamaria Lusardi & Olivia S Mitchelli, 2007. "Financial Literacy and Retirement Preparedness: Evidence and Implications for Financial Education," Business Economics, Palgrave Macmillan;National Association for Business Economics, vol. 42(1), pages 35-44, January.
    4. John Y. Campbell, 2006. "Household Finance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(4), pages 1553-1604, August.
    5. Lusardi, Annamaria & Tufano, Peter, 2015. "Debt literacy, financial experiences, and overindebtedness," Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, Cambridge University Press, vol. 14(4), pages 332-368, October.
    6. Esther Duflo & Emmanuel Saez, 2003. "The Role of Information and Social Interactions in Retirement Plan Decisions: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(3), pages 815-842.
    7. Annamaria Lusardi & Olivia Mitchell, 2006. "Financial Literacy and Retirement Preparedness: Evidence and Implications for Financial Education Programs," Working Papers wp144, University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center.
    8. Jones, Paul A., 2008. "From tackling poverty to achieving financial inclusion--The changing role of British credit unions in low income communities," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 37(6), pages 2141-2154, December.
    9. Thaler, Richard H & Shefrin, H M, 1981. "An Economic Theory of Self-Control," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(2), pages 392-406, April.
    10. Bernheim, B. Douglas & Garrett, Daniel M., 2003. "The effects of financial education in the workplace: evidence from a survey of households," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(7-8), pages 1487-1519, August.
    11. Khwaja, Ahmed & Silverman, Dan & Sloan, Frank, 2007. "Time preference, time discounting, and smoking decisions," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(5), pages 927-949, September.
    12. Courchane, Marsha & Gailey, Adam & Zorn, Peter, 2008. "Consumer credit literacy: What price perception," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 60(1-2), pages 125-138.
    13. Alberto Abadie & Guido W. Imbens, 2008. "On the Failure of the Bootstrap for Matching Estimators," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 76(6), pages 1537-1557, November.
    14. repec:adr:anecst:y:2008:i:91-92:p:10 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Stephan Meier & Charles Sprenger, 2007. "Impatience and credit behavior: evidence from a field experiment," Working Papers 07-3, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    16. Sondra G. Beverly & Marianne A. Hilgert & Jeanne M. Hogarth, 2003. "Household financial management: the connection between knowledge and behavior," Federal Reserve Bulletin, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.), issue Jul, pages 309-322.
    17. Jose C. Galdo & Jeffrey Smith & Dan Black, 2008. "Bandwidth Selection and the Estimation of Treatment Effects with Unbalanced Data," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 91-92, pages 189-216.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Billari, Francesco C. & Favero, Carlo A. & Saita, Francesco, 2023. "Online financial and demographic education for workers: Experimental evidence from an Italian Pension Fund," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    2. Ghafoori, Eraj & Ip, Edwin & Kabátek, Jan, 2021. "The impacts of a large-scale financial education intervention on retirement saving behaviors and portfolio allocation: Evidence from pension fund data," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 130(C).
    3. Brett Theodos & Christina Plerhoples Stacy & Devlin Hanson & Julian Jamison & Rebecca Daniels, 2020. "Do not swipe the small stuff: A randomized evaluation of rules of thumb‐based financial education," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(2), pages 701-722, June.
    4. Kayla Czar & Aaron Gilbert & Ayesha Scott, 2021. "Life lessons: Leaving home and financial capability of young adults," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(2), pages 556-579, June.
    5. Robert Argento & Lariece Brown & Sergei Koulayev & Grace Li & Marina Myhre & Forrest W. Pafenberg & Saty Patrabansh, 2018. "First-Time Homebuyer Counseling and the Mortgage Selection Experience in the United States: Evidence from the National Survey of Mortgage Originations," NMDB Staff Working Papers 18-02, Federal Housing Finance Agency.
    6. Fenella Carpena & Shawn Cole & Jeremy Shapiro & Bilal Zia, 2019. "The ABCs of Financial Education: Experimental Evidence on Attitudes, Behavior, and Cognitive Biases," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(1), pages 346-369, January.
    7. Huizingh, Eelko & Mulder, Machiel, 2014. "Effectiveness of regulatory interventions on firm behavior," Research Report 14011-EEF, University of Groningen, Research Institute SOM (Systems, Organisations and Management).
    8. Sandro Ambuehl & B. Douglas Bernheim & Annamaria Lusardi, 2022. "Evaluating Deliberative Competence: A Simple Method with an Application to Financial Choice," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 112(11), pages 3584-3626, November.
    9. Entorf, Horst & Hou, Jia, 2018. "Financial Education for the Disadvantaged? A Review," IZA Discussion Papers 11515, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Tim Kaiser & Lukas Menkhoff, 2017. "Does Financial Education Impact Financial Literacy and Financial Behavior, and If So, When?," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 31(3), pages 611-630.
    11. Rashmi Baura & Renuka Sane, 2014. "Repayment in microfinance: The Role of financial literacy and caste," Discussion Papers 14-06, Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi.
    12. Brounen, Dirk & Koedijk, Kees G. & Pownall, Rachel A.J., 2016. "Household financial planning and savings behavior," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 95-107.
    13. Silvia Helena Barcellos & Leandro S. Carvalho & James P. Smith & Joanne Yoong, 2016. "Financial Education Interventions Targeting Immigrants and Children of Immigrants: Results from a Randomized Control Trial," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(2), pages 263-285, July.
    14. repec:dgr:rugsom:14011-eef is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Lührmann, Melanie & Serra-Garcia, Marta & Winter, Joachim, 2015. "Teaching teenagers in finance: Does it work?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 160-174.
    16. Emmanuel Kwablah Apiors & Aya Suzuki, 2023. "Effects of Mobile Money Education on Mobile Money Usage: Evidence from Ghana," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 35(3), pages 715-742, June.
    17. De Beckker, Kenneth & De Witte, Kristof & Van Campenhout, Geert, 2021. "The effect of financial education on students’ consumer choices: Evidence from a randomized experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 188(C), pages 962-976.
    18. Basha, Shabeen Afsar & Bennasr, Hamdi & Goaied, Mohamed, 2023. "Financial literacy, financial development, and leverage of small firms," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    19. Aliza Moledina & Olivia Magwood & Eric Agbata & Jui‐Hsia Hung & Ammar Saad & Kednapa Thavorn & Ginetta Salvalaggio & Gary Bloch & David Ponka & Tim Aubry & Claire Kendall & Kevin Pottie, 2021. "A comprehensive review of prioritised interventions to improve the health and wellbeing of persons with lived experience of homelessness," Campbell Systematic Reviews, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 17(2), June.
    20. Beckmann, Elisabeth & Stix, Helmut, 2015. "Foreign currency borrowing and knowledge about exchange rate risk," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 1-16.
    21. Tsui-Yii Shih & Sheng-Chen Ke, 2014. "Determinates of financial behavior: insights into consumer money attitudes and financial literacy," Service Business, Springer;Pan-Pacific Business Association, vol. 8(2), pages 217-238, June.
    22. Marco Nieddu & Lorenzo Pandolfi, 2018. "Cutting Through the Fog: Financial Literacy and the Subjective Value of Financial Assets," CSEF Working Papers 497, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.
    23. Peter de Goeij & Geert Van Campenhout & Marjana SubotiÄ, 2018. "Improving Index Mutual Fund Risk Perception: Increase Financial Literacy or Communicate Better?," Economic Notes, Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA, vol. 47(2-3), pages 519-552, July.
    24. Fan, Lu & Chatterjee, Swarn, 2018. "Application of situational stimuli for examining the effectiveness of financial education: A behavioral finance perspective," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(C), pages 68-75.
    25. Tian, Guangning & Zhou, Shuyuan & Hsu, Sara, 2020. "Executive financial literacy and firm innovation in China," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).

    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. van Rooij, Maarten & Lusardi, Annamaria & Alessie, Rob, 2011. "Financial literacy and stock market participation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(2), pages 449-472, August.
    2. Annamaria Lusardi, 2008. "Financial Literacy: An Essential Tool for Informed Consumer Choice?," NFI Working Papers 2008-WP-13, Indiana State University, Scott College of Business, Networks Financial Institute.
    3. repec:use:tkiwps:2323 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Maarten C.J. van Rooij & Annamaria Lusardi & Rob J.M. Alessie, 2012. "Financial Literacy, Retirement Planning and Household Wealth," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 122(560), pages 449-478, May.
    5. Sholevar, Maryam & Harris, Laurence, 2019. "Mind the gap: A discussion paper on Financial Literacy, Financial behaviour and Financial Education : Is there any Gender Gap?," OSF Preprints b7zd6, Center for Open Science.
    6. Annamaria Lusardi & Olivia Mitchell, 2007. "Financial Literacy and Retirement Planning: New Evidence from the Rand American Life Panel," Working Papers wp157, University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center.
    7. Seshan, Ganesh & Yang, Dean, 2014. "Motivating migrants: A field experiment on financial decision-making in transnational households," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 119-127.
    8. Annamaria Lusardi, 2008. "Household Saving Behavior: The Role of Financial Literacy, Information, and Financial Education Programs," NBER Working Papers 13824, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Annamaria Lusardi & Olivia S. Mitchell, 2017. "How Ordinary Consumers Make Complex Economic Decisions: Financial Literacy and Retirement Readiness," Quarterly Journal of Finance (QJF), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 7(03), pages 1-31, September.
    10. Michal Grinstein-Weiss & Shenyang Guo & Vanessa Reinertson & Blair Russell, 2015. "Financial Education and Savings Outcomes for Low-Income IDA Participants: Does Age Make a Difference?," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 49(1), pages 156-185, March.
    11. Shen, Chung-Hua & Lin, Shih-Jie & Tang, De-Piao & Hsiao, Yu-Jen, 2016. "The relationship between financial disputes and financial literacy," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 46-65.
    12. Baulkaran, Vishaal, 2022. "Personal bankruptcy and consumer credit delinquency: The case of personal finance education," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    13. van Rooij, Maarten C.J. & Lusardi, Annamaria & Alessie, Rob J.M., 2011. "Financial literacy and retirement planning in the Netherlands," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 593-608, August.
    14. Azra Zaimovic & Anes Torlakovic & Almira Arnaut-Berilo & Tarik Zaimovic & Lejla Dedovic & Minela Nuhic Meskovic, 2023. "Mapping Financial Literacy: A Systematic Literature Review of Determinants and Recent Trends," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(12), pages 1-30, June.
    15. Meier, Stephan & Sprenger, Charles D., 2013. "Discounting financial literacy: Time preferences and participation in financial education programs," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 159-174.
    16. Florian Deuflhard & Dimitris Georgarakos & Roman Inderst, 2019. "Financial Literacy and Savings Account Returns," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 17(1), pages 131-164.
    17. Marco Nieddu & Lorenzo Pandolfi, 2018. "Cutting Through the Fog: Financial Literacy and the Subjective Value of Financial Assets," CSEF Working Papers 497, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.
    18. Mario Padula & Yuri Pettinicchi, 2013. "Providing Financial Education: A General Equilibrium Approach," CSEF Working Papers 334, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.
    19. Gathergood, John & Weber, Jörg, 2014. "Self-control, financial literacy & the co-holding puzzle," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 107(PB), pages 455-469.
    20. Annamaria Lusardi & Olivia S. Mitchell & Vilsa Curto, 2009. "Financial Literacy among the Young: Evidence and Implications for Consumer Policy," NBER Working Papers 15352, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    21. Feng, Xiangnan & Lu, Bin & Song, Xinyuan & Ma, Shuang, 2019. "Financial literacy and household finances: A Bayesian two-part latent variable modeling approach," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 119-137.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Financial education; Asset accumulation; Financial security;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D1 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior
    • I3 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty

    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:eee:jeborg:v:95:y:2013:i:c:p:146-158. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jebo .

    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.