Published in: Economics of Education Review 31 (1). (2012). 33-44. (with Adam S. Booij and Hessel Oosterbeek)
We study student loan behavior in the Netherlands where i) higher education students know little about the conditions of the government's financial aid program and ii) take-up rates are low. In a field experiment we manipulated the amount of information students have about these conditions. The treatment has no impact on loan take-up, which is not due to students already having decided to take a loan or students not absorbing the information. We conclude that a lack of knowledge about specific policy parameters does not necessarily imply a binding information constraint.