Confidence, financial literacy, and financial behaviours: An information experiment

Last registered on March 19, 2024
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Confidence, financial literacy, and financial behaviours: An information experiment
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0013197
Initial registration date
March 14, 2024

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
March 19, 2024, 5:11 PM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

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Primary Investigator

Name
Eileen Tipoe
Affiliation
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Ines Lee
PI Affiliation
PI Name
Christopher Rauh
PI Affiliation

Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2024-03-14
End date
2024-08-31
Keywords
Behavior, Finance & Microfinance
Additional Keywords
Confidence, Personal finance, Financial literacy, Survey experiment
JEL code(s)
D14, D83, D91, G11, G53
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
We provide causal evidence of how information about an individual’s implicit beliefs about their financial abilities (“confidence awareness”) affects their real financial behaviours. We first use a novel test to measure participants’ implicit beliefs about their financial abilities. Half of the participants will then receive their test result. We then measure actual performance on a financial literacy test and behaviour in an incentivised investment decision. This document outlines our plan for data analysis.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Lee, Ines, Christopher Rauh and Eileen Tipoe. 2024. "Confidence, financial literacy, and financial behaviours: An information experiment ." AEA RCT Registry. March 19. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.13197-1.0
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
All participants will take an implicit confidence test. The treatment group will be given their test result (not confident, neutral, confident), a non-technical interpretation of this result, and information about why it is important to be confident in one’s ability to make personal finance decisions. The control group will receive information that is unrelated to confidence.

Intervention Start Date
2024-03-14
Intervention End Date
2024-08-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
We measure two real outcomes: behaviour on a financial knowledge test and an incentivized investment decision.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
Our study uses a randomized experiment involving US participants to understand how awareness of one’s confidence causally affects personal financial behaviours. We also investigate the effectiveness of a relatively costless information treatment aimed at increasing awareness of self-confidence in financial abilities and the importance of confidence more generally for real financial behaviours.

In our experiment, we first elicit participants’ implicit (subconscious) and explicit confidence about their financial abilities. Using a between-subjects design, we then randomly allocate participants to a treatment or control group. The treatment group receives information about their implicit confidence and why confidence is important for financial decision-making. The control group receives information about corporation tax, which is unrelated to confidence or personal finance decisions.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Randomisation done automatically in Qualtrics.
Randomization Unit
Individual.
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
3000
Sample size: planned number of observations
3000
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
1500 in treatment and 1500 in control group.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
1540 participants will give us 0.8 power to detect an effect size of 0.10 of a standard deviation between the treatment and the control group in the main study at a .05 significance level.
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
University of York
IRB Approval Date
2023-12-01
IRB Approval Number
N/A
Analysis Plan

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