true and false choices to assess respondents’ understanding of basic financial concepts as well as their numeracy skills: respondents were required to do simple divisions, to perform basic calculations related to interest rates, to identify the better bargain among two different savings and loan products, and to demonstrate their understanding of how inflation affects their savings. Lastly, one question aimed to evaluate respondents’ know‐how needed to successfully interact with financial institutions (awareness of required documentation for being able to open an account). Aggregating the questions into a single index, we find two things (see Table 8): (i) scores are very similar across all groups and (ii) the aggregate scores are relatively high, with the weighted and arithmetic scores yielding similar results, perhaps reflecting a lack of variation and cognitive separating ability of the set of questions. However, when exploring the covariates associated with these financial literacy scores, we find strong relationships between the overall score and (i) whether business owners had a savings account at baseline and (ii) whether they had any schooling, supporting the assertion that the indices are informative in distinguishing between financial literacy levels, and the similarities in scores across groups reflects balance induced by the randomization.

# **_Perceptions_**

We find increases in self‐reported trust and perceptions of MFBs directly after the screening events; however, when asked the same questions in the follow‐up survey, many of the initial differences reduce or disappear.<sup>12</sup> While males are influenced most strongly by the movie stimulus in the short run, differentials in self‐reported trust only sustain for females in the longer run. Table 9 presents the results from the screening and endline surveys. While the movie on its own has some impact on whether people report that they would trust an MFB to keep their money when people were asked this question at the screening, the presence of _Accion_ seems to have a much larger effect than the movie, and there is no additivity of the interventions (although both are significant and positive). In the second follow‐up survey, we see that the differential between control and treatment group trust declines; however it is the movie treatment arms that sustain results, where the impact on **MFB** reduces to insignificance. This sustained impact is almost entirely driven by females, even though males were most affected by the movie in the short run. A supporting question identifying positive perceptions of MFBs (“MFBs treat people with respect”) shows similar results, with larger impacts for males in the short run, followed by some limited,

> 12 Direct comparison between the two follow‐up surveys should be handled carefully. Although the questions asked were identical, the response method varied across data collection activities. In the immediate follow‐up, the question responses were yes/no, and the questionnaire was self‐administered. In the 4‐month follow‐up survey, the questionnaire was administered by an interviewer and the response options were: strongly agree; agree; disagree; strongly disagree.

15