Poverty and Economic Decision-Making: Evidence from Changes in Financial Resources at Payday

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Carvalho, Leandro S.; Meier, Stephan; Wang, Stephanie W.
• 署名单位: University of Southern California; Columbia University; Pennsylvania Commonwealth System of Higher Education (PCSHE); University of Pittsburgh
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282
• DOI: 10.1257/aer.20140481
• 发表日期: 2016
• 页码: 260-284
• 关键词: time-preferences; cognitive reflection; credit markets; BEHAVIOR; Heterogeneity; consumption; PSYCHOLOGY; CHOICE; biases; RISK

摘要

We study the effect of financial resources on decision-making. Low-income US households are randomly assigned to receive an online survey before or after payday. The survey collects measures of cognitive function and administers risk and intertemporal choice tasks. The study design generates variation in cash, checking and savings balances, and expenditures. Before-payday participants behave as if they are more present-biased when making intertemporal choices about monetary rewards but not when making intertemporal choices about nonmonetary real-effort tasks. Nor do we find beforeafter differences in risk-taking, the quality of decision-making, the performance in cognitive function tasks, or in heuristic judgments.