Financial Education and Financial Access for Transnational Households: Field Experimental Evidence from the Philippines

We implemented a randomized controlled trial among transnational households in the Philippines estimating impacts of a financial education treatment, a financial access treatment, and the combination of the two on financial behaviors. We test whether there are complementarities between both interventions and provide insight into the nature of constraints operating in financial services markets. We find no evidence of complementarities between the financial education and access treatments. In addition, while we find no evidence of constraints in access to formal credit and savings products, our results suggest that access constraints exist in the formal insurance market. Impacts on other financial behaviors are suggestive of the importance of information constraints in financial decision-making. These results provide guidance to designers of financial interventions in similar populations.