Bringing Financial Literacy and Education toLow and Middle Income Countries: The Need toReview, Adjust, and Extend Current Wisdom

This paper presents a World Bank led and Russia trust fund financed work program tomeasure financial capability and the effectiveness of financial education in low and middleincome countries. The two activities and their staging have been motivated by the lessons ofhigh-income countries with financial literacy programs and the deviating characteristics of lowand middle income countries. While progress has been made in high-income countries tomeasure financial capability, there is little robust empirical evidence that financial educationcan improve it. While applying the financial capability concept in low and middle-incomecountries looks promising it will need to be adjusted to their characteristic and supported byinnovative interventions and rigorous impact evaluation to improve it....