Educating for economic rationality The hypothesis that education enhances economic decision-making has been surprisingly underexplored. Kim et al. studied this question using a randomized control trial in a sample of 2812 girls in secondary schools in Malawi. Four years after providing financial support for a year's schooling, they presented the subjects with a set of decision problems (for example, allocating funds to immediate versus future expenses) that test economic rationality. The education intervention enhanced both educational outcomes and economic rationality as measured by consistency with utility maximization in the long run. Science, this issue p. 83 An experiment with secondary school students shows that education enhances economic rationality measured with decision problems. Schooling rewards people with labor market returns and nonpecuniary benefits in other realms of life. However, there is no experimental evidence showing that education interventions improve individual economic rationality. We examine this hypothesis by studying a randomized 1-year financial support program for education in Malawi that reduced absence and dropout rates and increased scores on a qualification exam of female secondary school students. We measure economic rationality 4 years after the intervention by using lab-in-the-field experiments to create scores of consistency with utility maximization that are derived from revealed preference theory. We find that students assigned to the intervention had higher scores of rationality. The results remain robust after controlling for changes in cognitive and noncognitive skills. Our results suggest that education enhances the quality of economic decision-making.

中文翻译：

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教育干预在提高经济合理性方面的作用

经济理性教育 教育促进经济决策的假设出人意料地未得到充分探索。金等人。使用随机对照试验在马拉维中学的 2812 名女孩样本中研究了这个问题。在为一年的学校教育提供财政支持四年后，他们向受试者提出了一系列测试经济合理性的决策问题（例如，将资金分配给当前支出还是未来支出）。从长远来看，通过与效用最大化的一致性来衡量，教育干预增强了教育成果和经济合理性。科学，这个问题 p。83 一项针对中学生的实验表明，教育增强了以决策问题衡量的经济理性。学校教育奖励劳动力市场回报和其他生活领域的非金钱利益。然而，没有实验证据表明教育干预可以提高个人的经济理性。我们通过研究一项针对马拉维教育的随机 1 年财政支持计划来检验这一假设，该计划减少了缺勤率和辍学率，并提高了女中学生资格考试的分数。我们在干预 4 年后通过使用实验室现场实验来衡量经济合理性，以创建与效用最大化一致的分数，这些分数源自显示偏好理论。我们发现分配给干预的学生的理性得分更高。在控制认知和非认知技能的变化后，结果仍然稳健。