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Charity Scams

Submitted by Admin on
If you’re thinking about giving to a charity, do your research to avoid fraudsters who try to take advantage of your generosity. Here are tips to help make sure that your charitable contributions actually go to the cause you support.

An Apple or a Donut? How Behavioral Economics Can Improve Our Understanding of Consumer Choices

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This article provides a plain-language description of behavioral economics and the role of common biases in financial decisionmaking, and reviews ways in which the findings of behavioral economics can help structure financial education and public policy.

A Longitudinal Evaluation of the Intermediate-term Impact of the Money Smart Financial Education Curriculum upon Consumers’ Behavior and Confidence - April 2007:

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This study analyzes the impact of the FDIC’s Money Smart financial education curriculum and training on the financial opinions and behaviors of course participants. The study collected data from 631 adult respondents who experienced some portion of the Money Smart program during 2004-2005 and also completed a pre-training survey, post-training survey, and telephone follow-up survey. The data indicate that Money Smart financial education training positively affected consumer behaviors as measured through self-reported responses to survey questions 6-12 months after completing the training.

Financial Education for a Stable Financial Future

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This article provides a brief overview of the field of financial education and explores some of the challenges and potential solutions. The author describes developments in the contemporary financial education movement since the 1990s and the background economic changes that stimulated its growth; reviews currently available financial education initiatives for youth and adults and discusses the evidence about its effectiveness as well as broader challenges for the field. The article concludes by highlighting both general and specific examples of efforts to move the field forward.

Improving Evaluation and Metrics in Youth Financial Education

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The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the Take Charge America Institute at the University of Arizona, and the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis invited a small group of researchers and practitioners to discuss how to improve the evaluation and metrics of youth financial education programs. The meeting focused specifically on youth — which we defined as individuals under the age of 25 – in an effort to distinguish this effort from others that have discussed financial education research more broadly.

Minnesota’s Earned Income Credit Program: Utilization by Current and Former Welfare Households and the Impact of Policy Parameters

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This report examines the utilization of a state earned income credit by current and former welfare recipients using two measures: receipt among all current and former welfare recipients and among only those eligible for the credit. Both measures may be useful, depending upon which groups policymakers hope to target.