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<p>Financial education’s impact on financial anxiety is paradoxical, sometimes reducing it and other times heightening it. We resolve this using a dual-pathway behavioral model integrating prospect theory with self-efficacy and coping frameworks. The model posits a capability route (building self-efficacy) that reduces anxiety, and a risk-salience route (highlighting threats without supports) that can increase it. We operationalise this with the Anxiety-Sensitive Quality Index (ASQI), an auditable rubric linking program design to affective outcomes. A preregistered meta-analysis of 48 evaluations (2009–2024) confirms a pooled random-effects reduction in financial anxiety (SMD = − 0.24), with the strongest, most reliable gains in high-ASQI, practice-rich designs. Effects are more pronounced for vulnerable subgroups when supports are adapted. Our principal contribution is translational: the ASQI provides a procurement-ready tool for funders and policymakers to contract on and verify anxiety-sensitive design, moving the field from conceptual debate to auditable impact. This bridges behavioral theory and economic policy by incentivising educational designs that yield measurable improvements in population level mental wellbeing.</p>

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Financial education and financial anxiety: mechanisms, measurement, equity, and policy instruments for meaningful impact

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2026年2月3日

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  • Debdulal Thakur,
  • Shrabani Mukherjee

摘要

Financial education’s impact on financial anxiety is paradoxical, sometimes reducing it and other times heightening it. We resolve this using a dual-pathway behavioral model integrating prospect theory with self-efficacy and coping frameworks. The model posits a capability route (building self-efficacy) that reduces anxiety, and a risk-salience route (highlighting threats without supports) that can increase it. We operationalise this with the Anxiety-Sensitive Quality Index (ASQI), an auditable rubric linking program design to affective outcomes. A preregistered meta-analysis of 48 evaluations (2009–2024) confirms a pooled random-effects reduction in financial anxiety (SMD = − 0.24), with the strongest, most reliable gains in high-ASQI, practice-rich designs. Effects are more pronounced for vulnerable subgroups when supports are adapted. Our principal contribution is translational: the ASQI provides a procurement-ready tool for funders and policymakers to contract on and verify anxiety-sensitive design, moving the field from conceptual debate to auditable impact. This bridges behavioral theory and economic policy by incentivising educational designs that yield measurable improvements in population level mental wellbeing.