financial institution in the pre-intervention period and this number was not statistically significantly different across the treatment and control group. In the post intervention period, account ownership was much higher, at 84.7 percent, but it was still not statistically different across the treatment and control groups (column 2). Figure 1 plots the proportion of students holding accounts over time.

In Table 4, we examine the effect of the financial education program on credit usage. Column 1 shows any type of credit from a financial institution, while the remaining columns contain credit in the most common categories: credit cards, checking account overdrafts, non-payroll loans (general purpose loans, typically without any collateral), auto loans, and payroll loans (general purpose loans which use future wages as collateral).<sup>12</sup> For credit cards, we consider both having any positive credit card balance not yielding interest<sup>13</sup> (column 2) and revolving debt or installment plans to pay outstanding balances (column 3).

The financial education program lowered the probability of having credit in the post-intervention period by about 4 percent (a 1.96 percentage point decrease compared to 47.8 percent of control students with credit). Panel D in Table 4 shows that the size of the effect is similar in the earlier years (2016 and 2018) and the later years (2019 and 2020), suggesting the effect persists through the medium to the long run. Figure 2 shows the proportion of students with a positive credit balance for each year from 2016 to 2020.

The effect of the financial education program on credit usage is concentrated in the most frequently used categories: credit card purchases, credit card debt, and checking accounts overdrafts (column 2 to 4 in Table 4). The latter two categories are also the most expensive ones in Brazil. Revolving credit card loans or overdrafts from the largest institutions carry between a 170 and 420 annual percent rate.<sup>14</sup> Treatment students are 5 percent less likely to have credit cards purchases than control students (a 1.75 percentage point decrease compared to the control group mean of 34.4 percent).

The results in the following section (4.b) show that treatment students are less likely to hold a formal job, i.e., a job with a written contract, which could potentially explain their lower use of credit. However, we do not believe this to be the case since the results in Table 4 are similar when we consider only the sample of students who have a formal job, according to RAIS, as shown in Table A2 in the Appendix. In column 8 of Table A2, we use RAIS data to examine whether the financial education program affected the wages of those who were formally employed. We do not find any statistically significant effect on wages.

In Table 5, we examine the effect of the financial education program on having credit contracts in default. Column 1 shows that treatment students are less likely to have credit contracts with repayment delays than control students. Here, delays are defined as being between one day and

> 12 Garber et al. (2019) provide stylized facts on the use of credit by individuals in Brazil.

> 13 In Brazil, new purchases only yield interest rates if they are not paid in full at the due date of the bill, even if there is an outstanding revolving balance resulting from preceding billing cycles. There are also purchases made in installments directly at shops, who receive their payment as the installments become due.

> 14 BCB, Relatório de taxa de juros, March 2019.

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