We investigate the impact of an ambitious provincial school reform in Canada on students’ mathematical achievements. It is the first paper to exploit a universal school reform of this magnitude to identify the causal effect of a widely supported teaching approach on students’ math scores....

Many initiatives worldwide aim at improving financial literacy through targeted education programs, yet there is little evidence regarding their effectiveness. We examine the impact of a short financial education program on teenagers in German high schools. Our findings reveal that the training...

Do the repayment requirements of the classic microfinance contract inhibit investment in high-return but illiquid business opportunities among the poor? Using a field experiment, we compare the classic contract which requires that repayment begin immediately after loan disbursement to a contract...

This paper uses a quasi natural experiment to explore how financial education changes savings, investment, and consumer behavior. We use data from a Junior Achievement Finance Park to measure the effect of a financial literacy program on students who are assigned fictitious life situations and...

The effects of courses on student achievement are studied using 2006 data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in economics. A regression analysis showed expected and significant achievement differences by course, with the highest scores in advanced economics, followed by...

Research on conceptual change has paid relatively less attention to the social than to the physical science domain. In particular, research on conceptual change in economic understanding has been fairly sparse and loosely connected. Given the potential significance of citizen’s economic...

In their critique of the Test of Economic Literacy (TEL), Nelson and Sheffrin draw the conclusion that the TEL is an ideological test. In making their case, however, they neglect to cite the TEL Examiner's Manual by John Soper and myself (1987). In the 67 pages of that achievement test manual...

The Test of Economic Literacy (TEL), is a standardized multiple choice test developed under the auspices of the Joint Council on Economic Education with esteemed economists in an advisory role. The Test of Economic Literacy (TEL) is administered in many high school economics courses both to...

The teaching of economics at the high school level is vital for increasing basic economic literacy. This assessment of high school economics in the United States covers seven topics: enrollments in courses; course content; the testing of students; achievement in economics courses; economics...