ABSTRACT

Poverty may have negative consequences on people’s economic behavior and literature has documented close links between time discounting and poverty. This paper investigates intertemporal choices made by children and adults from segregated Roma communities in Slovakia. The study finds that fewer children than adults prefer smaller-sooner to larger-later amounts (referred to as “quasi-impatience”). The study further examines the decisions of individuals assigned into random teams by cohorts (children, parents, grandparents), and finds no statistically significant differences in the proportions of quasi-impatient teams across the cohorts. The results also suggest that children’s decisions are correlated with those of their parents.

摘要

贫困可能对人们的经济行为产生负面影响，文献记录了时间贴现与贫困之间的密切联系。本文调查了来自斯洛伐克隔离的罗姆人社区的儿童和成人所做的跨期选择。该研究发现，与成年人相比，较少的儿童更喜欢早点小量而不是大点量（称为“准不耐烦”）。该研究进一步检查了按队列（儿童、父母、祖父母）分配到随机团队的个人的决定，并发现队列中准不耐烦团队的比例没有统计学上的显着差异。结果还表明，儿童的决定与其父母的决定相关。