; lusardi et al, 2014, berg and zia, 2013 ). the evidence seems to point increasingly towards the effectiveness of “ just in time ” interventions, aimed at specific needs, relevant for individual businesses. a further issue concerns who is best equipped to provide financial education relevant for smes ’ managers and entrepreneurs. ideally education should start in schools ( mainly at secondary and university levels ) but industry associations could play an active role. banks too may have a special role to play in providing adequate and practical information to their clients. evidence from italy suggests that specific information policies implemented by banks have been able to raise the financial literacy of their customers ( mainly individuals ) and improve their financial asset allocation ( fort, manaresi and trucchi, 2014 ). finally, a few words on our role as regulators and central banks. financial education programmes are now offered by a number of regulators, available to both students and adults. at the bank of italy we have been developing a programme of financial education for school teachers ( coordinated with the ministry of education ) since 2008. during the academic year 2014 – 15 it involved approximately 2. 800 classes and 63. 000 students. they seem to be effective in improving students ’ familiarity with money and alternative payment systems ( romagnoli and trifilidis, 2013 ). the methodologies used are now being adapted to help the transition from the acquisition of knowledge to the development of skills, and new tools ( including visual ones ) are being introduced. other sources of financial education, in the form of simple explanations on the nature and possible uses of various financial instruments, are also available on our website ( www. bancaditalia. it / pubblicazioni / guide - bi / ). these programmes should not be limited to young students. we are now working with other italian financial regulators to develop a national strategy for financial education, the first step being the mapping of the existing initiatives available both to schools and other stakeholders. but as regulators we are obviously aware that financial education is complementary to and not a substitute for strong and effective consumer protection and should not therefore be regarded as a silver bullet by any of the interested parties ( customers, industry, regulators ). indeed, even financially - literate consumers make mistakes. the financial sophistication, and the number across different countries, of the people fooled by fraudulent investment operations are a sober reminder that financial education does not provide foolproof protection against fraud. consumer protection must be pursued through regulations on transparency

less frequent to find that the ceo and other managerial roles are also covered by family members. this situation, however, is very common in italy : among ( manufacturing ) familyowned firms, two thirds have a management team comprised exclusively of family members, compared with one third in spain, one fourth in france and germany and one tenth in the uk. recent research shows that managerial practices, more specifically the definition of targets, incentives and supervision, tend to be worse in family - owned firms that are also run by family members ( see, inter alia, bloom and van reenen, 2010, and caselli and gennaioli, 2013 ). this is also associated with worse performance. in italy there is evidence that familyowned firms with only family - member managers are less likely to invest in r & d, a key driver of innovation. practices such as centralised management or managers ’ compensation not linked to performance, also have a distinct and important negative effect on innovation ( bugamelli, cannari, lotti and magri, 2012 ). however, education programmes may have important effects on managerial ability. some studies, concerning developing countries, where managerial capital is lower, show that managerial skills can be taught and learnt, although results depend crucially on the approach to training. other recent surveys also suggest that vocational and general business training appears to be a relatively cost - effective way of promoting business performance and growth ( see bruhn, karlan and schoar, 2010, cho and honorati, 2013, and fernandes, lynch and notemayer, 2014 ). in italy, the elite project, run by the italian stock exchange, is an example of a platform offering services to unlisted firms aimed at expanding their size : in addition to financial advice and network connections, firms are provided with effective suggestions for the cultural, organisational and managerial changes required to realise their medium - term projects of growth. 3. evidence of the level of financial literacy for smes as has already been discussed in the morning session of this symposium, there is evidence that the level of financial literacy of smes in emerging countries is very low. but there is bis central bankers ’ speeches growing evidence that the situation in advanced countries is also far from satisfactory. in the case of italy, weakness in financial literacy in a broad sense seems to affect all the areas previously discussed and might be a factor – together with much - discussed negative institutional aspects, high levels of taxation and insufficient human