Week of September 28, 2015

1. Financial Education: A new study investigates the link between the "ABCs" of financial education (attitudes, behavior, and cognitive biases) and financial outcomes. The results report significant effects of both counseling and goal setting on real financial outcomes with no impact from "pay-for-performance" interventions. SSRN

2. Cash Transfers: Berk Özler sifts through the literature on cash transfer and graduation programs as he addresses the increasingly trendy development question – should we just give people cash? The World Bank

3. Asset Limits: Poor households face many challenges in building up savings for the long-term...and Maine just added another one. Starting November 1, individuals can only hold up to $5,000 in savings and other assets in order to receive food stamps. The Washington Post

4. Retirement Savings: Could tontines--a wildly popular but now illegal retirement savings plan from 200 years ago (and which are now mostly known as a threadbare plot device in action movies)--help shore up and broaden retirement plans? The Washington Post

5. Credit Unions: How do urban Community Development Credit Unions serve their customers (and which customers do they serve) in the face of rapid demographic changes and gentrification in their neighborhoods? Yes Magazine

August 13, 2026

Financial Access Initiative

The Massive DDoS Edition

Editor's Note:

If you were hoping that the faiV would be a pleasant distraction from the overwhelming flow of AI-related content, sorry. For the record, the faiV had “ai” built in before Anthropic existed. And a housekeeping note: we’ve finally jumped ship from Mailchimp to NYU’s mailing platform—I guess if you’re reading this it’s been a seamless transition and if you’re not, well, you’re not. Feedback on the faiV’s content and format and delivery methods is always welcome, just drop me an email.

- Tim Ogden

July 1, 2026

The Same As It Ever Was Edition

Editors’ Note: Hi, Laura and Jonathan here. A few of the pieces this week come from people who spent years up close with how poor households actually handle money, and keep coming back with something more tangled than the story usually told, and more persistent. Tim will be back for the next edition. - Laura Freschi and Jonathan Morduch

June 26, 2026

Laura Freschi and Timothy Ogden

Financial inclusion’s efficiency is now exposure: Four notes from the faiVLive webinar on emerging AI cyberthreats

The idea for this conversation was born from alarm. At the news that the US Treasury Secretary and the Chair of the Federal Reserve had called a meeting with the CEOs of the twenty largest banks in America to talk about threats to the financial system from emerging frontier AI models, Tim had questions: what about the community banks, the credit unions, and the CDFIs—the financial institutions that serve low-income communities and small businesses in America? When will they be invited to the meetings on how to defend their systems against AIs that can exploit software vulnerabilities with unprecedented ease and speed? And globally, are the regulators in middle-income and developing countries also holding meetings to discuss how they can defend against these threats? Will those meetings include anyone beyond the largest banks?

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