Learning the Impact of Financial Education When Take-Up is Low
This note shows how big data can help combine experimental with non-experimental approaches in impact evaluations when take-up is low. In this study, author have access to a large administrative data set (of 660 MB), which follows the monthly finan...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Brief |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2017
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/733071512466702773/Learning-the-impact-of-financial-education-when-take-up-is-low http://hdl.handle.net/10986/28986 |
| Summary: | This note shows how big data can help
combine experimental with non-experimental approaches in
impact evaluations when take-up is low. In this study,
author have access to a large administrative data set (of
660 MB), which follows the monthly financial indicators of
each client for up to 18 months prior to the intervention
and 6 months after it. Moreover, from the experimental
approach their also had a large pool of clients randomly
assigned to the control group. This data enables us to
obtain credible estimates by combining the experiment with
two non-experimental approaches. Their first use propensity
score matching to find, among the clients in the control
group, a subset of clients that best mimics the
pre-intervention financial trajectories of clients in the
treatment group that received treatment. The effects of the
workshops on the treated clients are summarized. Under our
preferred specification, the author finds that participating
in the workshop increases by 11 percentage points the
likelihood of paying more than the minimum payment, and
reduces by 3.4 percentage points the likelihood of delaying
payment. Monthly credit card spending increases by 63.7
percent, and the likelihood of owning a deposit account with
our partner bank also increases by 2.7 percentage points.
The two financial education interventions help clients reach
the minimum payment and pay their bills on time more often,
without reducing their credit card spending. Both
interventions increase the likelihood that clients are
profitable for the bank. |
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