IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp17214.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Inter-Institutional Cooperation and Migrants' Financial Education: An Italian Case Study

Author

Listed:
  • Nocito, Samuel

    (Sapienza University of Rome)

  • Venturini, Alessandra

    (University of Turin)

Abstract

This study evaluates the effect of a financial education program on migrants, emphasizing the importance of inter-institutional cooperation. The Italian case study, the "Welcome-ED" project—a partnership between the Municipality of Turin and the Turin Museum of Savings (MoS)—aimed to provide tailored financial education to diverse migrant groups, relying on cooperation with various local migration center entities: cooperatives, non-profit associations, and provincial centers for adult education. Our evaluation reveals a significant positive increase in migrants' financial literacy after participating in the project. Furthermore, when we redefine the MoS evaluation criteria employing a model from Item Response Theory (IRT), we document that the post-course migrants' greatest improvement was in the topic identified as most difficult by the IRT model. The study documents variations in the project's results, with migrants from cooperatives and non-profit associations benefiting more than those from provincial centers for adult education, primarily due to the different compositions of the migrant groups served. Our findings also highlight the significance of financial education for African migrants, a substantial part of migrants in Europe. The program evaluation underscores the essential role of cooperation between public and private institutions, cooperatives, and non-profit associations in expanding the reach and effectiveness of financial education projects for migrants. We finally emphasize the strengths and limitations of the program, providing recommendations for future enhancement of similar initiatives.

Suggested Citation

  • Nocito, Samuel & Venturini, Alessandra, 2024. "Inter-Institutional Cooperation and Migrants' Financial Education: An Italian Case Study," IZA Discussion Papers 17214, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17214
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp17214.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. van Rooij, Maarten & Lusardi, Annamaria & Alessie, Rob, 2011. "Financial literacy and stock market participation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(2), pages 449-472, August.
    2. Maarten C.J. van Rooij & Annamaria Lusardi & Rob J.M. Alessie, 2012. "Financial Literacy, Retirement Planning and Household Wealth," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 122(560), pages 449-478, May.
    3. Warda Belabas & Jasper Eshuis & Peter Scholten, 2020. "Re-imagining the city: branding migration-related diversity," European Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(7), pages 1315-1332, July.
    4. Adele Atkinson & Flore-Anne Messy, 2015. "Financial Education for Migrants and their Families," OECD Working Papers on Finance, Insurance and Private Pensions 38, OECD Publishing.
    5. Carlo BORZAGA, 1991. "The Italian Nonprofit Sector," Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 62(4), pages 695-710, October.
    6. Laurent E. Calvet & John Y. Campbell & Paolo Sodini, 2009. "Measuring the Financial Sophistication of Households," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(2), pages 393-398, May.
    7. McKenzie, David & Mohpal, Aakash & Yang, Dean, 2022. "Aspirations and financial decisions: Experimental evidence from the Philippines," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    8. Alberto Abadie & Susan Athey & Guido W Imbens & Jeffrey M Wooldridge, 2023. "When Should You Adjust Standard Errors for Clustering?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 138(1), pages 1-35.
    9. Lusardi, Annamaria & Mitchell, Olivia S., 2007. "Baby Boomer retirement security: The roles of planning, financial literacy, and housing wealth," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(1), pages 205-224, January.
    10. A. Colin Cameron & Jonah B. Gelbach & Douglas L. Miller, 2011. "Robust Inference With Multiway Clustering," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(2), pages 238-249, April.
    11. Nadzeya Laurentsyeva & Alessandra Venturini, 2017. "The Social Integration of Immigrants and the Role of Policy — A Literature Review," Intereconomics: Review of European Economic Policy, Springer;ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics;Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), vol. 52(5), pages 285-292, September.
    12. Seshan, Ganesh & Yang, Dean, 2014. "Motivating migrants: A field experiment on financial decision-making in transnational households," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 119-127.
    13. Karunarathne, Wasana & Gibson, John, 2014. "Financial literacy and remittance behavior of skilled and unskilled immigrant groups in Australia," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 54-62.
    14. A. Colin Cameron & Douglas L. Miller, 2015. "A Practitioner’s Guide to Cluster-Robust Inference," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 50(2), pages 317-372.
    15. repec:ecj:econjl:v:122:y:2012:i::p:449-478 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Steinar Strøm & Daniela Piazzalunga & Alessandra Venturini & Claudia Villosio, 2018. "Wage assimilation of immigrants and internal migrants: the role of linguistic distance," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 52(10), pages 1423-1434, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Samuel Nocito & Alessandra Venturini, 2022. "Does Cooperation among Institutions Foster Migrants Inclusion? Evidence from a Case-Study on Financial Literacy in Italy," Working Papers 10/22, Sapienza University of Rome, DISS.
    2. Shen, Chung-Hua & Lin, Shih-Jie & Tang, De-Piao & Hsiao, Yu-Jen, 2016. "The relationship between financial disputes and financial literacy," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 46-65.
    3. Lin, Chaonan & Hsiao, Yu-Jen & Yeh, Cheng-Yung, 2017. "Financial literacy, financial advisors, and information sources on demand for life insurance," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 218-237.
    4. Florian Deuflhard & Dimitris Georgarakos & Roman Inderst, 2019. "Financial Literacy and Savings Account Returns," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 17(1), pages 131-164.
    5. Francisco Gomes & Michael Haliassos & Tarun Ramadorai, 2021. "Household Finance," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 59(3), pages 919-1000, September.
    6. Tim Kaiser & Lukas Menkhoff, 2017. "Does Financial Education Impact Financial Literacy and Financial Behavior, and If So, When?," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 31(3), pages 611-630.
    7. Oscar A. Stolper & Andreas Walter, 2017. "Financial literacy, financial advice, and financial behavior," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 87(5), pages 581-643, July.
    8. Gunnar Gutsche & Bernhard Zwergel, 2016. "Information barriers and SRI market participation – Can sustainability and transparency labels help?," MAGKS Papers on Economics 201624, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung).
    9. Noviarini, Jelita & Coleman, Andrew & Roberts, Helen & Whiting, Rosalind H., 2021. "Financial literacy, debt, risk tolerance and retirement preparedness: Evidence from New Zealand," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    10. Tim Kaiser & Annamaria Lusardi, 2024. "Financial Literacy and Financial Education: An Overview," CESifo Working Paper Series 11070, CESifo.
    11. Jappelli, Tullio & Padula, Mario, 2013. "Investment in financial literacy and saving decisions," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(8), pages 2779-2792.
    12. van Rooij, Maarten C.J. & Lusardi, Annamaria & Alessie, Rob J.M., 2011. "Financial literacy and retirement planning in the Netherlands," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 593-608, August.
    13. Christelis, Dimitris & Dobrescu, Loretti I. & Motta, Alberto, 2020. "Early life conditions and financial risk-taking in older age," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 17(C).
    14. Grohmann, Antonia & Klühs, Theres & Menkhoff, Lukas, 2018. "Does financial literacy improve financial inclusion? Cross country evidence," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 111, pages 84-96.
    15. Hilt, Eric & Jaremski, Matthew & Rahn, Wendy, 2022. "When Uncle Sam introduced Main Street to Wall Street: Liberty Bonds and the transformation of American finance," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(1), pages 194-216.
    16. Samuel Nocito & Marcello Sartarelli & Francesco Sobbrio, 2021. "A Beam of Light: Media, Tourism & Economic Development," CESifo Working Paper Series 9055, CESifo.
    17. Nocito, Samuel & Sartarelli, Marcello & Sobbrio, Francesco, 2023. "A beam of light: Media, tourism and economic development," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    18. Stephen G Dimmock & Roy Kouwenberg & Olivia S Mitchell & Kim Peijnenburg, 2021. "Household Portfolio Underdiversification and Probability Weighting: Evidence from the Field," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 34(9), pages 4524-4563.
    19. Annamaria Lusardi & Pierre-Carl Michaud & Olivia S. Mitchell, 2017. "Optimal Financial Knowledge and Wealth Inequality," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 125(2), pages 431-477.
    20. James G. MacKinnon, 2019. "How cluster-robust inference is changing applied econometrics," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 52(3), pages 851-881, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    migrants; institutions; cooperatives; non-profit; financial literacy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D14 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Saving; Personal Finance
    • L30 - Industrial Organization - - Nonprofit Organizations and Public Enterprise - - - General
    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • P13 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - Cooperative Enterprises

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17214. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.