Financial education via television comedy

ABSTRACT

We show that television may be able to deliver rudimentary financial literacy in a cost-effective manner. In a controlled experiment, Cambodian garment factory workers were randomly assigned to one of three treatments: no video (baseline), slideshow and comedy TV show. After the intervention, to examine whether individuals were able to internalize the information that was provided, participants were asked to answer a set of questions on financial knowledge and attitudes. Our results show that participants randomly assigned to the comedy show are significantly more likely to report that they are interested in obtaining more information on savings accounts and are also significantly more likely to open a savings account in the next 6 months. This method of delivery may prove effective particularly for the disadvantaged sections of the population in remote regions of Cambodia.

KEYWORDS:

• Financial literacy
• media
• field experiment
• Cambodia

JEL CLASSIFICATION:

• O12
• L82
• C93

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the Cambodia Microfinance Association for their valuable support and the project manager in Cambodia, Tessa Anderssen, who was supported by Australian Volunteers for International Development.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ These include improving the use of oral rehydration therapy (ORS), which reduced infant mortality in Egypt (Abdulla, (2004)), reducing violence against women in India (Jensen, and Oster (2009)); increased use of contraception and a reduction in drug use (Verner, and Cardoso (2007), Chong,, Duryea, and La Ferrara (2012)) and increase in divorce rates, which is an indicator of female empowerment (Chong, and La Ferrara (2009)) in Brazil; and higher financial knowledge in South Africa (Berg, and Zia (2013)). See surveys by Della Vigna and La Ferrara (2017) and La Ferrara, (2016).

² Regressions control for individual level characteristics (age, gender, number of children, level of schooling and ownership of television).

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by Institute for Money, Technology, & Financial Inclusion (IMTFI). Subaward 2014-3085.