The Impact of High School Financial Education on Financial Knowledge and Choices: Evidence from a Randomized Trial in Spain

Abstract

We conducted a randomized controlled trial where 3,000 9 th grade students coming from 78 high schools received a financial education course at different points of the year. Right after the treatment, test performance increased by 16% of one standard deviation, treated youths were more likely to become involved in financial matters at home and showed more patience in hypothetical saving choices. In an incentivized saving task conducted three months after, treated students made more patient choices than a control group of 10 th graders. Within randomization strata, the main impacts are also statistically significant in public schools, which over-represent disadvantaged students.

The effect of economic situation on time and risk preferences: Does financial literacy matter?

“…Despite the increasing number of studies that focus on similar issues (e.g., the effect of financial education on financial behavior; for a meta-analysis of experimental studies see [10]), hitherto, a surprisingly small number of studies tackled the described problem either theoretically or empirically. To our knowledge, in the only empirical papers [11][12][13] directly combining income, financial literacy and economic decision-making, the authors found that financial literacy decreases time-discounting although the effects are rather small. Other than that, a recent review [5] presented a hypothesized complex model of a cognitive mechanism describing how can poverty affect economic preferences.…”

“…Many programs that aimed to increase financial literacy, and consequently to improve financial behavior had been proposed in the last years. However, the recent evidence [10][11][12]57,60] showed that financial education has only a small effect on financial literacy and almost negligible effect on real-life financial behavior. At the same time, the duration of these effects is very limited, often lasting no longer than one year [57,61].…”

Habilidades matemáticas e o conhecimento financeiro no ensino médio

“…Estes jovens na vida adulta carregarão essa educação financeira para garantir o bem-estar social (Gorla et al, 2016). Além dos tradicionais estudos mostrando associação de características socio-demográficas na educação financeira, alguns estudos já identificaram que o conhecimento financeiro tem forte dependência de habilidades matemáticas dos jovens (Bahrani, Holder & Patel, 2017, Amezcua & Everardo, 2017, Bover, Hospido & Villanueva, 2015Mancebón, Embún & Sancho, 2016;Hilgerth, Hogarth & Beverly, 2003).…”

The Impact of School-Based Financial Education on High School Students and Their Teachers: Experimental Evidence from Peru

“…The few notable exceptions areBecchetti and Pisani (2012),Bruhn, de Souza Leão, Legovini, Marchetti, and Zia (2016),Eissa, Habyarimana, and William (2014),and Bover, Hospido, and Villanueva (2018).…”

“…Three notable exceptions areLührmann, Serra-Garcia, and Winter (2015), who measure the impact of a financial education program on time inconsistency among German students; Jamison, Karlan, and Zinman (2014), who look at the impact of school-based financial education on discounting, self-control, and risk tolerance;and Bover, Hospido, and Villanueva (2018), who analyzes the degree of students' patience through an incentivized task.…”