|
on Financial Literacy and Education |
|
Issue of 2025–03–10
six papers chosen by Viviana Di Giovinazzo, Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca |
| By: | Daniele Chiavenato; Ricardo A. Madeira; Vitor Vaccaro |
| Abstract: | Can an applied mathematics curriculum enhance student intrinsic motivation and improve math achievement? We tackle this question through a randomized control trial of a program that integrates financial education into the mathematics curriculum in Brazil. Spanning 190 public schools and over 15, 000 students, our study reveals that the program significantly boosts students’ interest in mathematics and enhances financial literacy and math performance, particularly among students from poorer socioeconomic backgrounds. Initially, the program strengthens these students’ internal locus of control and broad interest in mathematics during the first year. By the second year’s conclusion, it positively impacts their financial literacy, math proficiency, and specific socio-emotional skills crucial for the labor market. However, we do not observe significant changes in self-reported financial behaviors or attitudes as measured by a financial autonomy index. |
| Keywords: | Financial education, School attainment, Socio-emotional skills, Youth, Randomized controlled trials |
| JEL: | G53 I21 J24 O12 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unl:unlfep:wp666 |
| By: | Bedoya Arguelles, Guadalupe; Belyakova, Yulia; Coville, Aidan; Escande, Thomas; Isaqzadeh, Mohammad; Ndiaye, Aminata |
| Abstract: | How do proven strategies to improve the economic conditions of ultra-poor households hold up against the increasing severity and co-incidence of economic, security, and climate shocks Five years after receiving an economic livelihoods package, and shortly prior to the 2021 regime change, “ultra-poor” women in Afghanistan continued to have significantly higher levels of consumption, assets, market work participation, financial inclusion, children’s school enrollment, and women’s psychological well-being and empowerment, relative to the control group. Households boost resilience by diversifying productive activities and the program improves equality by reducing the gaps between ultra-poor and non-ultra- poor households across multiple dimensions. The results illustrate how an increasingly popular approach to improve the conditions of the very poor through a one-off “big push” intervention can strengthen household resilience through multiple shocks in one of the most fragile settings worldwide. |
| Date: | 2023–11–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:10596 |
| By: | Cull, Robert J.; Foster, Vivien; Jolliffe, Dean Mitchell; Lederman, Daniel; Mare, Davide Salvatore; Veerappan, Malarvizhi |
| Abstract: | Treating data collected pre- and post-COVID-19 as a quasi-experiment, this paper examines the importance of presumed enablers and safeguards in driving the observed expansion of digital payments and digital financial inclusion. The analysis interacts drivers of digital payment usage with a country-specific proxy of the severity of the COVID-19 shock, leveraging variation in both the drivers and the quasi-treatment (the COVID-19 shock) to identify the parameters. Although regulation of banks and digital economic activity were correlated with digital payments before and during the pandemic, the capabilities of users and connectivity (to electricity, the internet, and mobile telephony) were responsible for increased use of digital financial services in response to the shock. An interpretation is that governments and the private sector were able to overcome underdeveloped banking systems and weak regulation of the digital economy, but only where there was adequate digital infrastructure, connectivity, and a high share of the population that understood and could make use of digital payments. |
| Date: | 2023–11–13 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:10603 |
| By: | Mohammad Amin; Gomez Caceres, Norma Janeth |
| Abstract: | Women often face more hurdles than men in obtaining finance. This is especially so when credit supply is limited and financial markets are less developed. As a result, owners of firms may prefer men over women as top managers of their firms, widening the gender gap in top manager positions. This paper tests this idea using firm-level survey data for small and medium-size formal manufacturing enterprises in 47 developing countries. The results confirm a positive relationship between credit supply and the likelihood of having a woman versus a man as the top manager. This positive relationship is much stronger in industries that are more dependent on external sources of finance for technological reasons. It is also stronger in countries with poor coverage by credit bureaus and low competition between banks, which is consistent with “statistical” and “taste-based” discrimination against women borrowers. The main result is robust to several endogeneity checks, sample alterations, and alternative measures of credit supply and financial development. |
| Date: | 2024–02–26 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:10711 |
| By: | Baganz, Emilie; McMahon, Tadgh; Khorana, Sukhmani; Magee, Liam; Culos, Ingrid |
| Abstract: | Globally we are living through a continuing transition into the ‘information age’, where information and communication technology has transformed almost every aspect of people’s lives. The COVID-19 pandemic arguably accelerated this change. For refugees, as with other people, digital inclusion is arguably critical to social inclusion. This article seeks to better understand the digital inclusion of refugees during the COVID-19 pandemic, using data from two phases of research conducted in 2020 and 2021 with refugees who had recently resettled in Australia. Digital inclusion was mapped against three domains – access, affordability, and literacy – used in the annual Australian Digital Inclusion Index. Our research makes three contributions: it examines levels of digital inclusion among recently arrived refugees; it explores the relation of these levels to social links and bonds; and discusses differences within the sample according to gender, age, language group and type of digital inclusion. |
| Date: | 2023–12–14 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:nqu8c_v1 |
| By: | Mohieldin, Mahmoud; Ramadan, Racha |
| Abstract: | Closing the gender digital divide by ensuring equal access to and benefit of the internet may reduce economic inequalities and close the gender gap in employment by providing new economic opportunities and facilitating access to market information. This paper estimates the impact of digital inclusion, measured by the Inclusive Internet Index on the female-to-male labor force participation ratio, while controlling for other economic and social factors. Using data from the World Development Indicators, the Economist Intelligence Unit database, and the World Bank’s Women, Business and the Law database for 13 countries in the Middle East and North Africa region for four years (2018 to 2021), a pooled cross section dataset is constructed. The model is estimated using generalized least squares to control for heteroskedasticity. The results show that an inclusive internet environment would reduce the gender gap in the labor force. Other key drivers include the structure of the economic growth, norms, and gender roles in the society. These results are relevant for the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals agenda, mainly goals 5 and 10. |
| Date: | 2024–01–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:10663 |