Financial literacy programs are fast becoming a key ingredient in financial policy reform worldwide. Yet, what is financial literacy exactly and what do we know of its effectiveness? This paper collects insights from the literature thus far and summarizes global evidence on financial literacy,...

This paper tests experiential learning as a debiasing tool to reduce gambling in South Africa, through a randomized field experiment. The study implements a simple, interactive game that simulates the odds of winning the national lottery through dice rolling. Participants first roll one die...

Identifying the determinants of entrepreneurship is an important research and policy goal, especially in emerging market economies where lack of capital and supporting infrastructure often imposes stringent constraints on business growth. This paper studies the impact of a comprehensive business...

A growing body of literature examines the causal impact of financial literacy on individual, household, and firm level outcomes. This paper unpacks the mechanism of impact by focusing on the first link in the causal chain. Specifically, it studies the experimental impact of financial literacy on...

Firms in developing countries are widely known to face many constraints, from lack of access to finance and physical capital to poor infrastructure. The course seems to have been particularly effective at promoting business growth for those entrepreneurs who exhibited higher levels of financial...

Lowering the cost of sending remittances has become a major goal of policy efforts in migration, and an area the World Bank has worked on across the globe. Two main channels for lowering these costs are regulatory reforms to promote competition and the introduction of new products; and efforts...

Microfinance, the provision of small individual and business loans, has experienced dramatic growth, reaching over 150 million borrowers worldwide. Much of the success of microfinance has been attributed to attempts to overcome the challenges of information asymmetries in uncollateralized...

Microfinance, the provision of small individual and business loans, has witnessed dramatic growth, reaching over 150 million borrowers worldwide. Much of its success has been attributed to overcoming the challenges of information asymmetries in uncollateralized lending. Yet, very little is known...

Remittances are a major source of external finance for many developing countries but the cost of sending remittances remains high for many migration corridors. International efforts to lower costs by facilitating the entry of new financial products and new cost comparison information sources...