Financial Education Programs in Colombia: Challenges in Assessing Their Effectiveness

Abstract

Financial education programs enjoy widespread governmental and financial industry support. They are considered an important tool for improving financial literacy, encouraging financial inclusion, and increasing consumer financial protection. Therefore, assessing their effectiveness is important to guarantee that public and private resources are allocated wisely. As we highlight in this paper, the available empirical literature casts serious doubts on the effectiveness of those programs in achieving their main objectives. Even properly designed-from an impact evaluation viewpoint-financial education programs fail to deliver long-run effects on individuals' financial literacy or financial choices. We highlight the challenges to evaluate the impact of financial education programs and, consequently, their merits. We showcase the international experience in assessing the effectiveness of these programs and draw lessons for Colombia. We offer a set of recommendations regarding the minimum set of attributes that financial education programs should have to allow serious policy evaluation.

A Systematic Review of Financial Literacy Research in Latin America and The Caribbean

“…By adopting a PRISMAbased methodology [19] and the novel proposed scheme, this systematic review helped collect and process a sample of 65 articles that center on FL in LAC countries. Unlike earlier studies that adopted a narrower focus on the effects of FL [33], reviews of financial education programs [89,97], FL perspectives in the Caribbean [77], and a focus on links with health [100] or technologies [79], this review adopted a broader perspective while focusing on research published recently.…”

La educación financiera en el contexto internacional

“…Siguiendo las recomendaciones de esta red, muchos sistemas educativos han desarrollado diferentes iniciativas nacionales para tratar de promocionar la adquisición de conocimientos financieros por parte de la población (OCDE/INFE, 2015) 1 . Estrategias que se caracterizan por la utilización de un enfoque coordinado a nivel nacional mediante un programa que reconoce la importancia de la EF, identifica necesidades y fija una hoja de ruta para alcanzar objetivos concretos en un período de tiempo determinado (Grifoni y Messy, 2012).…”