Financial Education in the Workplace: Combining Experimental Evidence with Administrative Data

Descripción del proyecto

Impulsar la alfabetización financiera en el lugar de trabajo

La gestión de las finanzas personales requiere comprender conceptos financieros básicos. Desafortunadamente solo un tercio de las personas lo tienen. Persisten las brechas socioeconómicas y de género, mientras que los mercados complejos y la banca digital aumentan los riesgos. El proyecto FINANCEforALL, financiado por el Consejo Europeo de Investigación, probará una intervención de alfabetización financiera a gran escala en la población trabajadora de Portugal. Explorará cómo la educación configura el conocimiento financiero individual, el comportamiento y los resultados a largo plazo, como el ahorro, el crédito, el empleo y el espíritu emprendedor. Los hallazgos arrojarán luz sobre los efectos colaterales sobre los compañeros de trabajo, las empresas y las economías locales, proporcionando una perspectiva única sobre cómo la educación financiera en el lugar de trabajo puede fomentar la estabilidad financiera y el desarrollo económico.

Objetivo

Understanding and managing personal finances is crucial for promoting individuals’ financial and economic well-being. Yet, financial literacy remains low globally, with only one-third of people understanding basic financial concepts. In addition, socioeconomic and gender financial literacy gaps persist, exacerbating social inequalities. Increased complexity of financial markets and personal responsibility due to longer life expectancy, the emergence of private pension plans, and the digitalization of banking underscore the need for national strategies to promote financial literacy. Those can empower individuals, enhance financial stability, and promote inclusive economic development.

FINforALL will evaluate the impact of a large-scale financial literacy intervention on the working population in Portugal, a developed country with below-average financial literacy. It investigates how financial education shapes individuals’ financial knowledge and behavior and how these effects extend to co-workers, firms, and local economies. While financial literacy programs have been studied globally, this project analyses often-overlooked spillover effects, which are important to designing cost-effective interventions.

The experimental design involves three randomization units: municipalities, firms, and employees. It combines survey data collected during the experiment with unique administrative data at the individual level (credit registry, tax filings, property registry, and private banks’ transactions) and firm-level (financial statements and matched employee-employer). These data allow me to examine the short- and long-term effects on individual outcomes, such as assets, credit, income, consumption, saving, employment, entrepreneurship, and broader effects on firms and local economies.

FINforALL will be the first to examine the direct and spillover effects of financial education at the workplace, offering new insights into its broader implications of financial education.