A Framework for Developing and Testing Financial Capability Education Programs Targeted to Elementary Schools

Concerns about consumers’ ability to manage their finances have triggered a range of proposals, including interventions aimed at elementary school students. The goal of these approaches is to improve lifelong economic decision making, but the evidence supporting their efficacy is thin. In this article, the authors discuss the trend toward elementary financial education and propose a framework for developing evidence-based programs. They emphasize the need for understanding the underlying mechanisms that facilitate the translation of student knowledge into the ability to make sound economic decisions over the life course. The framework illustrates the importance of articulating the intended mechanisms and effects of education programs. This focus on mechanisms will not only facilitate the evaluation of individual programs, but also the synthesis of evidence across interventions.     

Training,human capital,and gender gaps in entrepreneurial performance

In the aftermath of the global financial crisis, policymakers have been increasingly striving to support female entrepreneurship as a possible growth driver. This paper contributes to reconciling mixed findings in the literature on the effectiveness of entrepreneurial training with an analysis that links training and human capital, including tertiary education and non-cognitive skills, with gender gaps in entrepreneurial performance in Africa. We have found that while financial literacy training directly benefits men, it does not raise the sales levels of women entrepreneurs. Instead, tertiary education has a direct positive link with the performance of women. Consistent with our theoretical model where different skills are complements, tertiary education can act as a channel that makes training effective. Regarding non-cognitive skills, evidence shows that women entrepreneurs who are tenacious achieve stronger sales performance. Our results underscore the importance of including tertiary education and entrepreneurial training programs focused on a balanced set of skills, including non-cognitive skills, among policies for women entrepreneurs.     

Six guidelines for teaching intermediate macroeconomics

This is the first article that compares terminal master's degree programs in economics from universities that have a PhD program in economics with those that do not offer PhD programs in economics. The authors compare these differences based on surveys in 2002 and 2012. They examine differences in general program characteristics, department faculty, admission requirements, student characteristics, financial aid, and graduation and placement rates. They find statistically significant differences in all of these categories and also find that some of the differences and similarities have changed over time.     

Does Medicare benefit the poor?

Measuring the progressivity of age-targeted government programs is difficult because no single data set measures income and benefit use throughout life. Previous research, using zip code as a proxy for lifetime income, has found that Medicare benefits flow primarily to the most economically advantaged groups, and that the financial returns to Medicare are often higher for the rich than the poor. However, our analysis produces the starkly opposed result that Medicare is an extraordinarily progressive public program, in dollar terms or welfare terms. These new results owe themselves to our measurement of socioeconomic status as an individual's education, rather than the geographically aggregated measures of income used by previous research. We argue that individual education has important practical and conceptual advantages over geographically aggregated measures of income. Our results suggest the crucial importance of accurate poverty measurement in evaluating the progressivity of complex government programs like Medicare or Social Security.     

Implications of a multi-disciplinary educational and research environment: Perspectives of future business, law, science, and engineering professionals in the technological innovation: Generating economic results (TI:GER®) program

Functioning well in a global, technology-driven, multi-disciplinary environment necessitates a more robust educational paradigm, especially in science and engineering. For a scientific education to be complete, it can no longer be restricted solely to technical areas. Similarly, law and business students will encounter a slew of technologies throughout the course of their careers. They will be required to comprehend the intricacies and corresponding implications of these technologies in order to impart their perspectives effectively and have an impact. In an effort to address this widely recognized need, a number of multi-disciplinary education and innovation programs have recently surfaced. Although several of these have been documented in the literature, the experiences of participants and the manner in which these will influence their future career plans as well as personal goals are not usually taken into account. Our focus in this paper is to shed light on this 'end effect' of being exposed to a multi-disciplinary education by stressing the importance of understanding social, economic, and legal aspects of science and engineering within the context of a scientific graduate-level education. Specifically, the authors take a closer look at the TI:GER^®1(Technological Innovation: Generating Economic Results) program. Based on their experiences, the authors present their learning and insight on multi-disciplinary education in a mixed technical and professional degree setting.     

Diversity,knowledge clusters,and job placement: Graduate economics teaching of core microeconomics

The authors present an empirical analysis of what is taught in core micro-economics at a set of top U.S. doctoral economics programs. Their aim is to evaluate the diversity across programs and assess whether there are distinct “schools of thought” in graduate economics education. Their empirical findings reveal substantial, in fact, surprising diversity in what is taught. Application of a clustering algorithm results in programs clustering into two main “schools of thought.” The authors also specify an econometric model of job placement. Their job placement results indicate that candidates are more likely to be hired at schools in the same cluster as their home program, even after controlling for other factors. The results inform debates about graduate education and the relevance of a “common core” curriculum.     

The effect of financial education training on the financial literacy of Spanish students in PISA

The aim of this paper is to analyze the effect of financial education training on Spanish secondary students. To do this, we rely on data from PISA 2012. This included an assessment of students’ financial literacy for the first time. In order to identify the causal effect of financial education courses, we employ a difference-in-differences (DiD) approach to compare the outcomes of students receiving and not receiving education on financial concepts for two different subjects (financial literacy and reading comprehension). Our results suggest that financial education programs only have an impact if they are taught as part of other subjects, i.e. by means of a cross-curricular approach.     

Endogenous Financial and Trade Openness

The authors study the endogenous determination of financial and trade openness. They construct a theoretical framework leading to two-way feedbacks between financial and trade openness and identify these feedbacks empirically. They find that one standard deviation increase in commercial openness is associated with a 9.5% increase in de facto financial openness (% of GDP). Similarly, an increase in de facto financial openness has powerful effects on future trade openness. De jure restrictions on capital mobility have only a weak impact on de facto financial openness, while de jure restrictions on the current account have a large adverse effect on commercial openness. The authors investigate the relative magnitudes of these directions of causality using Geweke's (1982 ) decomposition methodology. They conclude that in an era of rapidly growing trade integration, countries cannot choose financial openness independently of their degree of openness to trade. Dealing with greater exposure to turbulence by imposing restrictions on financial flows is likely to be ineffectual.     

Consensus among Economics Teachers from Transition Economies

The authors analyze the economic opinions of teachers and economists from the former Soviet Union who participated in economic education programs sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education under the auspices of the National Council on Economic Education from 1995–2001. They sought to determine the level of consensus on economic topics among the participants, and then analyzed their concordance with U.S. economists. They conclude that there is a significant level of consensus among the participants from the former Soviet Union, but this consensus is often at odds with the views of American economists.     

支持失地农民的发展性政策选择

随着我国社会经济体制的转型,产生了规模不小的各类弱势群体,而失地农民在一定程度上成为新的弱势群体。文章试图从国际视角出发,通过详细的文献梳理,对西方反社会排斥实践尤其是补偿性教育进行经验总结,并在此基础上与国内已有做法进行细致的比较分析,研究发现:补偿教育是国外反社会排斥公共政策的研究热点。通过细致的文献梳理,发现西方不仅从生存方面对弱势群体进行了援助,而且用补偿教育的手段对弱势群体的发展能力进行了本质提升;反之,国内对失地农民的关注焦点主要集中在补偿与社会保障体系的建设上,一定程度上忽略了教育培训的运用。所以,文章建议国内应从社会责任观的培育,发展性公共政策体系的建立以及法律、金融措施保障三方面展开深化研究。这对提升弱势群体特别是失地农民的生存和发展能力从而走出"边缘化困境"有重要的现实和理论意义。     

Economic Education in Korea: Current Status and Changes

The authors describe key aspects of precollege and undergraduate economic education in Korea. They show that precollege students seem to have low economics literacy due to problems with the curriculum and insufficient training of teachers. At the undergraduate level, they show that economics departments have more male students than female students and that the employment rate for economics majors is lower than for business majors. They hope to draw more of Korean economists' attention to research initiatives in economic education.     

Economic Education in Schools and Universities in England

The authors review three aspects of economic education in England. They examine trends in undergraduate economics in England, principally in terms of recruitment and outcomes and connections with economics in schools. They also review formal instruction in schools through so-called “advanced level” courses for 16–19-year-old students and the role of the academic community in recent research in England on economic education.     

政府财政教育支出绩效评价研究

财政教育支出作为政府公共支出的一个重要部分,支出量大,涉及面广.财政教育支出的绩效划分为支出的过程绩效(包括配置绩效和耗用绩效)、成果绩效和监管绩效.成果绩效的评价是整个财政教育支出绩效评价的核心.     

Using Art (Paintings,Drawings, and Engravings) to Teach Economics

The authors provide a brief review of how economists have dealt with art in their research and more popular writings, and then consider the case that has been made for using art and other visual materials in general education and—in very few cases—to teach economics. A new Web site on Art and Economics is introduced that makes it easier for economics instructors to find and use art with their students. They discuss several different ways of using the art in classes, and provide a table with over 50 paintings from the Introduction slide show at the Web site to illustrate the range of economic concepts and issues that can be taught with art.     

Knowledge Management Tools, Inter-Organizational Relationships, Innovation and Firm Performance

The business value of information technology is an enduring research question. This research provides new insights to better understand the mechanisms supporting this relation by analyzing the impact of knowledge management tools (KMTs) on the performances of business units involved in inter-firm collaborative innovation projects. We extend current literature by developing and empirically testing a model where: (1) the use of KMTs is affected by critical organizational variables, (2) KMTs can impact the innovation and financial performances of business units. We find that mutual trust and culture for change do not affect the extent of the use of KMTs, while collaborative experience and naturalness in using ICTs as substitutive of face-to-face contacts have a significant impact. Moreover, we show that a more intense use of KMTs has a direct positive effect on new product performance and speed to market, as well as on financial performance. Yet, only new product performance acts as an indirect conduit linking KMT use and financial performances. This article provides a discussion and perspectives of further research concerning the impact of KMTs on innovation practices in inter-firm collaborative environments.     

消费者金融行为、消费者金融教育和消费者福利

消费者金融行为的研究是一个多学科的研究领域,并在近十年来开始得到主流经济学和金融学的重视。消费者金融行为的研究集中在如何定义、描述、理解和预测、改变、发展,以及比较消费者的金融行为。本文从上述六个方面对美国关于消费者金融行为的研究进行了简要综述,并讨论了消费者金融行为与消费者金融教育、消费者福利之间的关系。最后,对中国消费者金融学的研究提出了几点建议,希望对中国消费者金融学领域的发展有所贡献。     

Financial Outcomes in Adolescence and Early Adulthood in Australian Longitudinal Data

This article describes and catalogues person-specific measures of financial outcomes that are available for adolescents and young adults in three large longitudinal Australian surveys: the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth, the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children, and the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey. It summarises international research that has been conducted on young people's financial outcomes, illustrating outcomes that have been investigated, research questions that have been asked, and distinctions that have been drawn between adolescents and young adults. It considers the strengths and weaknesses of the three surveys for extending this research into the Australian context.     

Specialized new graduate RN critical care orientation: retention and financial impact

New graduate RN retention in the first year of employment is a challenge for hospitals, ranging from a low of 25% to a high of 64%. he objectives of this study were to determine the retention and costs associated with the employment of new graduate RNs before and after the initiation of a specialized year-long critical care orientation program. Retention was compared between two independent groups of graduate RNs in the critical care units of two tertiary hospitals in a multi-hospital health care system in metropolitan New York. The major study findings were a significant difference in retention between the two groups at 3 months, 9 months, and 12 months, and an annual financial savings related to decreased nursing turnover. Specialized orientation programs that support new graduate RNs have documented increased retention and decreased turnover. Health care finances are positively impacted by specialized orientation programs.     

天然林保护工程绩效评价:现状、问题与研究展望

天然林保护工程实施绩效评价是优化工程宏观决策机制的基础.本文回顾了公共财政支出项目绩效评价的理论基础,天然林保护工程绩效评价研究现状、评价实践,分析天然林保护工程绩效评价研究和实践过程中存在的主要问题,提出了天然林保护工程绩效评价进一步研究的重点以及需要解决的机制问题.     

What You Think You Know: The Effects of Prior Financial Education and Readability on Financial Disclosure Processing

Disclosures in advertising and other forms of marketing communication have been examined as a means to help consumers understand complex financial information and make more informed decisions regarding financial products and services. The authors extend inquiry into this supposition by looking at the readability of disclosures in relation to consumer financial literacy. In an experiment, it was found that while highly readable disclosures facilitate more accurate information processing for those with prior financial education, such disclosures might actually inhibit accurate processing for those without prior financial education. This suggests that policy cannot rely on mandated disclosure in marketing communications alone. Rather, disclosures in financial product or services communication can only be effective if such disclosures are paired with other forms of education leading to greater financial literacy.