Essays on the impact of financial education on financial behavior
The overall aim of this thesis is to provide new evidence on the impact of financial education on financial behavior of children, female microfinance borrowers, and university students. This thesis includes four chapters, each of which contributes to a different topic that is relevant for our knowledge on financial education and financial behavior.
Chapters 2 and 3 provide systematic insights on the effectiveness of combined financial and social education programs on financial and social attitudes and behavior among elementary school students in developing countries (Uganda and China). In these two chapters, a randomized phase-in approach was used by randomizing the order in which schools implemented the program. Chapter 4 examines the impact of a business and financial training in Vietnam, which aims to improve business knowledge of female microfinance borrowers, on financial behavior. The study also uses a randomized controlled trial. More specifically, a lottery determined a control group without access to the training, a group of women allowed to follow the training, and a second group of women that was allowed to bring their husbands to the training.
Chapter 5 investigates the impact of financial education on risk, time, and social preferences of three groups of university students of the Faculty of Economics and Business of the University of Groningen. Through preferences elicitation, better understanding about (1) young people’s time preference or patience, (2) young people’s risk preference, and (3) young people’s social preference can be acquired.