Finance for All: The Impact of Financial Literacy Training in Compulsory Secondary Education in Spain

Laura Hospido, Ernesto Villanueva and Gema Zamarro

No 8902, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We estimate the impact on objective measures of financial literacy of a 10-hours financial education program among 15-year old students in compulsory secondary schooling. We use a matched sample of students and teachers in Madrid and two different estimation strategies. Firstly, we use reweighting estimators to compare the performance in a test of financial knowledge of students in treatment and control schools. In another specification, we use school fixed-effect estimates of the effect of the course on change in the score in tests of financial knowledge. The program increased treated students' financial knowledge by between one fourth and one third of a standard deviation. We uncover heterogeneous effects, as students in private schools did not increase their knowledge much, possibly due to a less intensive implementation of the program. Secondly, we analyze the bias that arises because the set of schools that participate in financial literacy programs is not random. Such selection bias is estimated as the pre-program performance in financial PISA of students in applicant schools relative to a nationally representative sample of schools. We then study if estimators that condition on school and parental characteristics mitigate selection bias.

Keywords: financial education; impact evaluation; selection bias (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D14 I22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 47 pages
Date: 2015-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

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Working Paper: FINANCE FOR ALL: THE IMPACT OF FINANCIAL LITERACY TRAINING IN COMPULSORY SECONDARY EDUCATION IN SPAIN (2015)
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