Credit decisions play an important role for the economic wellbeing of households. However, the complexity of products and varying price information display makes it hard for consumers to navigate this field. Empirical evidence has important implications for consumer protection policies, as many people fail to make optimal choices for themselves and struggle to understand credit cost information. Presenting ...
Do financial education programs affect financial knowledge and behaviors? We examine this question using a meta-analysis that incorporates studies from the past decade, which saw a rapid increase in financial education research. When examining data from 76 financial education randomized experiments across 33 countries covering over 160,000 individuals, we find that financial education improves both ...
Diese Arbeit untersucht den Einfluss verhaltensökonomischer Aspekte und Bildung für die finanzielle Entwicklung. Sie besteht aus vier Kapiteln, welche jeweils ein separates Forschungspapier darstellen. Die Kapitel decken folgende Themen ab: Determinanten einer impulsiven Kreditaufnahme, Hindernisse bei finanzieller Inklusion, die Auswirkungen von finanzieller Bildung und die finanziellen Folgen eines ...
We conduct a randomized field experiment to study the effects of two financial education interventions offered to small-scale retailers in rural western Uganda. The treatments contrast “active learning” with traditional “lecturing” within standardized lesson-plans. After six months, active learning has a positive effect on savings and investment outcomes, in contrast to small or zero effects for lecturing. ...
We study the rapidly growing literature on the causal effects of financial education programs in a meta-analysis of 76 randomized experiments with a total sample size of over 160,000 individuals. Many of these experiments are published in top economics and finance journals. The evidence shows that financial education programs have, on average, positive causal treatment effects on financial knowledge ...
We extend standard models of work-related training by explicitly incorporating workers’ locus of control into the investment decision through the returns they expect. Our model predicts that higher internal control results in increased take-up of general, but not specific, training. This prediction is empirically validated using data from the German Socioeconomic Panel (SOEP). We provide empirical ...
Mobile money is an important instrument to improve the degree of financial inclusion, especially in developing countries. However, having a mobile money account does not imply that this account is actually used. In our sample, 86% of microentrepreneurs own a mobile money account, but only 49% actively use it – the resulting gap indicates unmet opportunities. We estimate that mobile money reaches up ...
Research has consistently shown that women’s involvement in household decision making positively affects household outcomes such as nutrition and education of children. Is financial literacy a determinant for women to participate in intra-household decision making? Using data on savings groups in Rwanda, we examine this relationship and show that women with higher financial literacy are more involved ...
This research studies the stylized fact of a “gender gap” in that women tend to have lower financial literacy than men. Our data which samples middle-class people from Bangkok does not show a gender gap for those with at least minimum wage earnings. This result is not explained by men’s low financial literacy, nor by women’s high income and good education. Rather, country characteristics may influence ...