The Impact of Financial Education for Youth in Ghana

Governments and non-governmental organizations promote school-based financial literacy programs as means to instill financial behaviors that can persist through adulthood. We conduct a randomized trial of two financial literacy education programs in government-run Ghanaian primary and junior high sc...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:World development 2018-02, Vol.102, p.71-89
Main Authors: Berry, James, Karlan, Dean, Pradhan, Menno
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Attitudes
Child labor
Education
Educational programs
Financial literacy
Impact analysis
Literacy
Literacy programs
Middle schools
NGOs
Nongovernmental organizations
Public finance
Savings
Schools
Secondary schools
Social education
Statistical analysis
Statistical significance
Students
Studies
Youth
youth finance
Youth organizations
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Summary:Governments and non-governmental organizations promote school-based financial literacy programs as means to instill financial behaviors that can persist through adulthood. We conduct a randomized trial of two financial literacy education programs in government-run Ghanaian primary and junior high schools. The first integrated both financial and social education, while the second included only financial education. Our study finds that after nine months, both programs had positive impacts on self-reported savings at school relative to the control group, but there were no statistically significant increases in aggregate savings nor in hypothesized mechanisms such as attitudes, preferences, or knowledge. The financial education-only treatment led to a weakly statistically significant increase in child labor relative to the control group, although the difference in impact between the two treatment groups was not statistically significant. The lack of short-term effects of these programs on financial behaviors and attitudes indicate that alternative program designs should be evaluated to understand whether and how these outcomes can be influenced among students in this age group.
ISSN:0305-750X
1873-5991
DOI:10.1016/j.worlddev.2017.09.011