Who You Train Matters : Identifying Complementary Effects of Financial Education on Migrant Households
There has long been a concern among policymakers that too much of remittances are consumed and too little saved, limiting the development impact of migration. Financial literacy programs have become an increasingly popular way to try and address th...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Policy Research Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2012
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2012/08/16602649/train-matters-identifying-complementary-effects-financial-education-migrant-households http://hdl.handle.net/10986/12009 |
| Summary: | There has long been a concern among
policymakers that too much of remittances are consumed and
too little saved, limiting the development impact of
migration. Financial literacy programs have become an
increasingly popular way to try and address this issue, but
to date there is no evidence that they are effective in
inducing savings among remittance-receiving households, nor
is it clear whether such programs are best targeted at the
migrant, the remittance receiver, or both. The authors
conducted a randomized experiment in Indonesia which
allocated migrants and their families to a control group, a
migrant-only training group, a family member-only training
group, and a training group in which both the migrant and a
family member were trained. Three rounds of follow-up
surveys are then used to measure impacts on the financial
knowledge, behaviors, and remittance and savings outcomes of
the remaining household. They find that training both the
migrant and the family member together has large and
significant impacts on knowledge, behaviors, and savings.
Training the family member alone has some positive, but
smaller effects, whilst training only the migrant leads to
no impacts on the remaining family members. The results show
that financial education can have large effects when
provided at a teachable moment, but that this impact varies
greatly with who receives training. |
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