| Abstract: |
We study how a 10-hour course about personal finance delivered in compulsory
secondary education affects a wide range of student’s outcomes over a three
months horizon. The contents of the course covered budgeting, banking
relationship and saving vehicles, but also awareness about future outcomes. To
obtain reliable estimates, we conducted a randomized field experiment where
3,000 9th grade students coming from 78 Spanish high schools received
financial education at different points of the academic year. Right after the
course, performance in standardized tests of financial knowledge increased by
16% of one standard deviation, and treated youths were more likely to become
involved in financial matters at home and showed a higher degree of patience
in hypothetical saving choices. An incentivized saving task conducted three
months after delivering the course suggests that treated youths displayed more
patient choices at various interest rates and maturities than a control group
of 10th graders. The results of higher performance in financial test scores
and the higher degree of patient choices in the incentivized saving task among
the treated are statistically significant in strata with students with a
relatively more disadvantaged background. |