Empowerment through giving advice

This project uses a survey experiment to study whether the usage of an investment simulation tool combined with an advice-giving task boosts confidence in one’s financial decision-making skills and motivation to deal with the topic of “saving and investing”. It relies on the random assignment of two treatments. First, participants are assigned to a simulation tool with either a finance frame or a neutral frame. Second, participants are either asked to give hypothetical financial advice to a friend after using the tool or not. With this 2x2 between-subjects design, a causal effect of the tool and additional tasks on the confidence and motivation can be obtained.

2024-02-09

2024-02-29

Financial literacy/ knowledge and confidence

Financial literacy/ knowledge: (1) Subjective measure: Number of correct answers to three advanced financial literacy questions (Score). (2) Objective measure: Self-assessment of financial literacy “In the course of the survey, we asked you six quiz questions on financial knowledge. How many questions do you think you answered correctly?” Scale: 0 to 6, do not know, refuse to answer;
Confidence: (1) Direct measure: “How much confidence do you have in your ability to make good financial decisions?” Scale: 0 “no confidence” to 10 “very high confidence”; (2) Tool-specific confidence: after each comprehension question in the interactive graph “How sure are you about your answer?” (Scale 0 “not sure at all” to 10 “very sure”); (3) Indirect measures: (i) “I would never participate in the stock market without my advisor.” (Scale 0 “fully disagree” to 10 “fully agree”), (ii) “I have the confidence to participate in the stock market.” (Scale 0 “fully disagree” to 10 “fully agree”), (iii) Number of “do not know” responses in the advanced financial literacy questions (Score) to approximate for over-confidence

Motivation

(1) Direct measure (After the experiment): “How motivated are you to [further] deal with the topic of “saving and investing”?” Scale: 0 “Not motivated at all” to 10 “Very strongly motivated”
(2) Indirect measure (At the end of the questionnaire): “Thank you for taking part in our survey! As a thank you, we offer you the opportunity to download one of these three resources free of charge.” Scale: Dummy equals 0 if the participant does not download a document related to further learning about finance, 1 of the participant downloads a document related to finance

Both the framing of the simulation tool and the advice-giving component are randomized. Therefore, it is a 2x2 between-subjects design.

computer

individual

No

n/a

1000 survey participants

In the 2x2 between-subjects design, each of the four groups will contain approximately 250 observations.