| Abstract: |
We study the rapidly growing literature on the causal effects of financial
education programs in a meta-analysis of 76 randomized experiments with a
total sample size of over 160,000 individuals. The evidence shows that
financial education programs have, on average, positive causal treatment
effects on financial knowledge and downstream financial behaviors. Treatment
effects are economically meaningful in size, similar to those realized by
educational interventions in other domains and are at least three times as
large as the average effect documented in earlier work. These results are
robust to the method used, restricting the sample to papers published in top
economics journals, including only studies with adequate power, and accounting
for publication selection bias in the literature. We conclude with a
discussion of the cost-effectiveness of financial education interventions. |