Working Paper: NBER ID: w20268
Authors: Bruce I. Carlin; Li Jiang; Stephen A. Spiller
Abstract: The growing use of on-line educational content and related video services has changed the way people access education, share knowledge, and possibly make life decisions. In this paper, we characterize how video content affects individual decision-making and willingness to share in the context of a personal financial decision. Content geared toward giving better instructions leads to better financial decisions, but less information sharing. Misleading advertising not only causes worse decisions, but makes it less likely that videos with useful content get shared in the market. This implies that the effects of deception have externalities on other peoples' literacy and decision-making. Our work has important implications for policies guiding financial literacy training, and also has broader impact for education in the information age.
Keywords: financial literacy; video content; decision-making; deceptive advertising
JEL Codes: A20; G00; I21
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Tagged video (Y60) | Increased choice of the optimal credit card (G51) |
| Deceptive advertising (M38) | Decreased likelihood of choosing the optimal credit card (D91) |
| Video type (Y91) | Decision quality (D79) |
| Video type (Y91) | Allocation and amount of attention (J29) |
| Deceptive advertising (M38) | Decision making (D87) |
| Tagged video (Y60) | Perceived shareability (D16) |
| Correct choices (Y10) | Sharing behavior when exposed to deceptive ads (D91) |