Financial Education and Access to Savings Accounts: Complements or Substitutes? Evidence from Ugandan Youth Clubs

Dean Karlan, Julian Jamison and Jonathan Zinman

No 169412, Center Discussion Papers from Yale University, Economic Growth Center

Abstract: Evidence on the effectiveness of financial education and formal savings account access is lacking, particularly for youth. We randomly assign 250 youth clubs to receive either financial education, access to a cheap group account, or both. The financial education treatments increase financial literacy; the account-only treatment does not. Administrative data shows the education plus account treatment increases bank savings relative to account-only. But survey-measured total savings shows roughly equal increases across all treatment arms. Earned income also increases in all treatment arms. We find little evidence that education and account access are strong complements, and some evidence they are substitutes.

Keywords: Consumer/Household Economics; Financial Economics; Institutional and Behavioral Economics; International Development; Labor and Human Capital (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 87
Date: 2014-05
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (34)

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/169412/files/cdp1040.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Financial Education and Access to Savings Accounts: Complements or Substitutes? Evidence from Ugandan Youth Clubs (2014)
Working Paper: Financial Education and Access to Savings Accounts: Complements or Substitutes? Evidence from Ugandan Youth Clubs (2014)
Working Paper: Financial Education and Access to Savings Accounts: Complements or Substitutes? Evidence from Ugandan Youth Clubs (2014)
Working Paper: Financial Education and Access to Savings Accounts: Complements or Substitutes? Evidence from Ugandan Youth Clubs (2014)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:yaleeg:169412

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.169412

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Center Discussion Papers from Yale University, Economic Growth Center Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().