The Minimal Impact of a Large-Scale Financial Education Program in Mexico City

We conduct randomized experiments around a large-scale financial literacy course in Mexico City to understand the reasons for low take-up among a general population, and to measure the impact of this financial education course. Our results suggest that reputational, logistical, and specific forms of...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors:	Bruhn, Miriam, Lara Ibarra, Gabriel, McKenzie, David
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	en_US
Published:	Elsevier 2014
Subjects:	financial literacy financial capability encouragement design low take-up
Online Access:	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/18192

id	okr-10986-18192
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-181922021-04-23T14:03:42Z The Minimal Impact of a Large-Scale Financial Education Program in Mexico City Bruhn, Miriam Lara Ibarra, Gabriel McKenzie, David financial literacy financial capability encouragement design low take-up We conduct randomized experiments around a large-scale financial literacy course in Mexico City to understand the reasons for low take-up among a general population, and to measure the impact of this financial education course. Our results suggest that reputational, logistical, and specific forms of behavioral constraints are not the main reasons for limited participation, and that people do respond to higher benefits from attending in the form of monetary incentives. Attending training results in a 9 percentage point increase in financial knowledge, and a 9 percentage point increase in some self-reported measures of saving, but in no impact on borrowing behavior. Administrative data suggests that any savings impact may be short-lived. Our findings indicate that this course which has served over 300,000 people and has expanded throughout Latin America has minimal impact on marginal participants, and that people are likely making optimal choices not to attend this financial education course. 2014-05-06T21:47:18Z 2014-05-06T21:47:18Z 2014-03-12 Journal Article Journal of Development Economics 0304-3878 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2014.02.009 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/18192 en_US CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo World Bank Elsevier Publications & Research :: Journal Article Mexico
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
language	en_US
topic	financial literacy financial capability encouragement design low take-up
spellingShingle	financial literacy financial capability encouragement design low take-up Bruhn, Miriam Lara Ibarra, Gabriel McKenzie, David The Minimal Impact of a Large-Scale Financial Education Program in Mexico City
geographic_facet	Mexico
description	We conduct randomized experiments around a large-scale financial literacy course in Mexico City to understand the reasons for low take-up among a general population, and to measure the impact of this financial education course. Our results suggest that reputational, logistical, and specific forms of behavioral constraints are not the main reasons for limited participation, and that people do respond to higher benefits from attending in the form of monetary incentives. Attending training results in a 9 percentage point increase in financial knowledge, and a 9 percentage point increase in some self-reported measures of saving, but in no impact on borrowing behavior. Administrative data suggests that any savings impact may be short-lived. Our findings indicate that this course which has served over 300,000 people and has expanded throughout Latin America has minimal impact on marginal participants, and that people are likely making optimal choices not to attend this financial education course.
format	Journal Article
author	Bruhn, Miriam Lara Ibarra, Gabriel McKenzie, David
author_facet	Bruhn, Miriam Lara Ibarra, Gabriel McKenzie, David
author_sort	Bruhn, Miriam
title	The Minimal Impact of a Large-Scale Financial Education Program in Mexico City
title_short	The Minimal Impact of a Large-Scale Financial Education Program in Mexico City
title_full	The Minimal Impact of a Large-Scale Financial Education Program in Mexico City
title_fullStr	The Minimal Impact of a Large-Scale Financial Education Program in Mexico City
title_full_unstemmed	The Minimal Impact of a Large-Scale Financial Education Program in Mexico City
title_sort	minimal impact of a large-scale financial education program in mexico city
publisher	Elsevier
publishDate	2014
url	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/18192
_version_	1764439423727960064

The Minimal Impact of a Large-Scale Financial Education Program in Mexico City

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