Publication: Who You Train Matters : Identifying Combined Effects of Financial Education on Migrant Households
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Date
2014-03-29
ISSN
0304-3878
Published
2014-03-29
Author(s)
Doi, Yoko
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Abstract
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. We conducted a randomized experiment in Indonesia which allocated female 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. We find that training both the migrant and family member together has large and significant impacts on knowledge, behaviors, and savings. Training the family member alone has some positive, but smaller effects, while 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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Publication Who You Train Matters : Identifying Complementary Effects of Financial Education on Migrant Households(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-08)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.Publication The Impact of Financial Literacy Training for Migrants and their Families(2012-09)This note shows some of the gains possible from training both the migrant and their remaining family member.Publication The Impact of Financial Literacy Training for Migrants(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-05)Remittances are a major source of external finance for many developing countries but the cost of sending remittances remains high for many migration corridors. International efforts to lower costs by facilitating the entry of new financial products and new cost comparison information sources rely heavily on the financial literacy of migrants. This paper presents the results of a randomized experiment designed to measure the impact of providing financial literacy training to migrants. Training appears to increase financial knowledge and information seeking behavior and reduce the risk of switching to costlier remittance products. But it does not change either the frequency or level of remittances.Publication The Impact of Financial Literacy Training for Migrants at Destination(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-05)Lowering the cost of sending remittances has become a major goal of policy efforts in migration, and an area the World Bank has worked on across the globe. Two main channels for lowering these costs are regulatory reforms to promote competition and the introduction of new products; and efforts to increase the disclosure of costs of remitting money through websites. However, the success of such policies depends on the ability of migrants to understand how to use the different methods available for remitting, and on their understanding of the costs implied by each method. Existing evidence suggests migrants often lack knowledge in these areas, suggesting scope for financial literacy efforts to change their behavior.Publication The Impact of Financial Literacy Training for Migrants(Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2014-01-23)Remittances are a major source of external financing for many developing countries, but the cost of sending them remains high in many migration corridors. Despite efforts to lower these costs by offering new products and developing cost-comparison information sources, many new and promising inexpensive remittance methods have relatively low adoption rates. The lack of financial literacy among migrants has been identified as one potentially important barrier to competition and new product adoption. This paper presents the results of a randomized experiment designed to measure the impact of providing financial literacy training to migrants. Training appears to increase financial knowledge and information-seeking behavior and reduces the risk of switching to costlier remittance products, but it does not result in significant changes in the frequency of remitting or in the remitted amount.
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