Examples of existing evidence of role of specific media on outcomes

• Chong and La Ferrara (2009) – TV and divorce in Brazil– Variation across municipal areas in when signal for Rede Globo was introduced– Argue that themes in telenovelas -> female empowerment -> divorce.– In related work also find lower fertility

• Paluck (2008) estimates the effects on beliefs and norms of a radio soap opera featuring messages of intergroup tolerance in Rwanda.– Randomized field experiment – Divided people into groups, and played them soap opera or health program in

groups– Program nationally available.– Finds program didn’t change personal beliefs, but did change perceptions of

social norms.• Dahl and DellaVigna (2008) focus on the effects of movie violence on crime

in the US.– Look at short-run (same day) crime after release of violent movies– Identification relies on variation over time in violence in movies– Find that more violent movies reduce crime, claim it is through violent individuals

watching movies instead of committing crimes…

Lessons for thinking about financial literacy

• Increasing number of examples of social media etc. being used to give financial literacy messages.

• But how do we know any of it works?Þ Important to plan evaluations when launching

these new efforts

E.g. 1: Spanish language radio program could be piloted in some randomly selected hispanic areas in the U.S. and not others.

Lessons

• E.g2: Financial literacy in a soap opera– Could think about “encouragement design” –

randomly choose some group of people to encourage to watch this (perhaps provide showings, etc.)

– Can think of ways that participants not clear what purpose of study is:

– E.g. Paluck’s wording to participants – study has purpose “to understand Rwandans’

opinions about radio programs produced by a certain organization”