Description of the programme

Research has shown that people’s lack of savings and their mismanagement of indebtedness has been one of the determinants of global economic crises. Financial education programmes have been implemented – and evaluated - in various countries, and researchers have found that patience is a key characteristic of people who exhibit better financial and economic behaviour and performances. The study’s authors highlight that children with higher levels of patience are more likely to save more and opt for heathy habits. This study aims to contribute to the literature on financial and economic education, by testing the effectiveness of a programme of ‘economics of savings’ that is targeted at children aged 8 and 9 in north-western Italy. The programme involved a one-hour session, which includes a short explanation of what saving means, and what savings could be used for. The programme involved 173 children, who came from five primary schools.

The study

Researchers at the Center for Research on Pensions and Welfare Policies undertook this study. The aim of the study was to test the programme’s effectiveness, and it employed a quasi-experimental research design to do this, using a difference-in-difference methodology. The researchers selected the five schools at random, and the headteacher of the participating schools picked the classes for the study. The study had four key phases:

1. A pre-intervention demographic questionnaire;
2. Participation in a game, which was aimed at measuring pupil patience;
3. Participation in the intervention (or ‘treatment’), which involved a one-hour ‘laboratory’, which aimed to familiarise children with the idea and advantages of saving;
4. Repeated participation in the game (at stage two), to measure patience.

The sample size was 173 pupils, reduced to 165 due to non-completion of one of the four stages.. 117 took part in the ‘intervention’, while 48 pupils formed the control group.

Key findings

• The study found that repetition of the game (in stages two and four) facilitated pupils in being more patient. The intervention on its own did not appear to be effective at reducing the impatience level, but the joint effect of the treatment and the repetition of the game remained significant in decreasing impatience levels.
• The results for girls suggested that the treatment and repetition effects were non-significant, but for boys, the researchers found that the initiative reduced their impatience score by about one point. They found that 70% of this effect was attributable to the laboratory.
• The study found the initiative was effective in decreasing the inconsistency of the answers given in the game, but only for boys.
• The researchers found that the pupils with highly educated fathers, and with their own savings, were on average more impatient. It also found that boys were more impatient than girls.
• Overall, the findings suggest that the differences that the researchers observed in relation to learning paths suggest that programmes of financial literacy targeted at this age group should either be differentiated by gender, or should be restructured so that they are effective for both boy and girls.

Points to consider

• Although the researchers sampled the schools randomly, headteachers had the ultimate decision as to which classes should participate in the study. This potentially could have introduced bias into the study, as headteachers may have been more inclined to choose high-performing cohorts.
• The programme was only a one-hour intervention, which may have limited the effects on the children’s financial literacy.

• The programme was only an hour-long laboratory, rather than a course. While it provides useful insights for primary-aged children, it is not necessarily a programme that would be effective in different cohorts, due to its simplicity.