As soon as possible: the effectiveness of a financial education program in Italian schools

Tommaso Agasisti (), Alessio D'Ignazio (), Gabriele Iannotta (), Angela Romagnoli () and Marco Tonello
Additional contact information
Tommaso Agasisti: Politecnico di Milano
Alessio D'Ignazio: Bank of Italy
Gabriele Iannotta: Politecnico di Milano
Angela Romagnoli: Bank of Italy

No 1464, Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) from Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area

Abstract: This paper examines the impact of 'Financial Education in Schools', a comprehensive financial education program implemented by the Bank of Italy in primary and secondary schools across the country. The program includes teacher training, specialized educational materials and interactive classroom activities. Using data from two randomized controlled trials involving over 1,500 students in grades 5 and 8, we find that the program significantly improves students' financial literacy by approximately 8 percentage points. Notably, the alternative approach – providing teaching materials without direct instruction – only yields positive outcomes for students from socio-economically advantaged backgrounds. These findings underscore the pivotal role of schools and teachers in fostering financial literacy and promoting equal opportunities for all students.

Keywords: financial education; impact evaluation; school effects; RCT (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 G53 I20 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024-10
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.bancaditalia.it/pubblicazioni/temi-dis ... 464/en_tema_1464.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
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:bdi:wptemi:td_1464_24

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) from Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().