Stanford Financial Education Symposium
Formerly Cherry Blossom Financial Education Institute
The 2025 Stanford Financial Education Symposium will be held on April 10–11, 2025. Researchers from around the globe will present their work at Stanford University.
2025 Call for Papers
The Symposium is particularly interested in papers that assess the effectiveness of financial education and its influence on financial behavior and other outcomes. Academic faculty and researchers in economics and related fields studying financial education are encouraged to submit papers. We also welcome the submission of abstracts or papers from advanced PhD students. The program includes a special session dedicated to student research and a poster session.
The Financial Literacy Research Award, for the best submitted paper, will be presented at the 2025 Symposium. The award includes a prize of $5,000.
The Rising Financial Literacy Scholar Award, for the best poster presentation by a PhD student, will be presented at the 2025 Symposium. The award includes a prize of $1,000.
Send submissions to StanfordIFDM@stanford.edu by February 24, 2025.
Thank you to the National Endowment for Financial Education (NEFE) for continuing to sponsor this event.
Photos from the 2024 conference.

The Origins of the Cherry Blossom Financial Education Institute
The idea for the annual Cherry Blossom Financial Education Institute originated at the 2010 Colloquium held by the National Endowment for Financial Education (NEFE): Quarter Century Project: 25 Years of Research in Financial Education. For that event, an extensive body of research was collected and presented, but little consensus emerged about what makes financial education effective.
To further our understanding of the effectiveness of financial education, three researchers— Annamaria Lusardi of GFLEC, Michael Staten of the University of Arizona, and William Walstad of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln—organized and conducted a forum (or “Institute”) in April 2014 with researchers who were invited to discuss key research issues and works in progress. This first Institute was hosted by the Take Charge America Institute (TCAI) at the University of Arizona.
The success of the 2014 event led GFLEC to host a second Institute in Washington, D.C., in April 2015, funded by TCAI. This second Institute was named the Cherry Blossom Financial Education Institute and thus the annual event was born. The research committee selecting the papers for presentation consists of Professors Annamaria Lusardi, Michael Staten, and Alberto Rossi of Georgetown University.
Since 2024, the institute has been held at Stanford University.
Previous Institutes
Learn more about previous institutes through the following links:
Stanford University
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Past Event Stanford Financial Education Institute
2024 Cherry Blossom Financial Education Institute
-*This event has already occurred. -
Past Event Stanford Financial Education Institute
2023 Cherry Blossom Financial Education Institute
-*This event has already occurred.