Loose Knots: Strong versus Weak Commitments to Save for Education in Uganda

Dean Karlan and Leigh Linden ()

No 19863, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Commitment devices offer an opportunity to restrict future choices. However, strict commitments may deter participation. Using a school-based commitment savings program for children to save for educational expenses in Uganda, we compare an account fully committed to school expenses to an account with a weaker commitment (funds withdrawn in cash, rather than a voucher). Children save more in the weaker commitment treatment arm, and when combined with parental outreach spend more on educational supplies and score 0.10 standard deviations (standard error =0.04) on test scores. The fully committed account yields no such educational improvements, and neither account finds impacts on secondary or downstream outcomes such as attendance, enrollment, or non-cognitive skills.

JEL-codes: D12 D91 I21 O12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr
Note: DEV LE LS
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (30)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w19863.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Loose Knots:Strong versus Weak Commitments to Save for Education in Uganda (2016)
Working Paper: Loose Knots: Strong versus Weak Commitments to Save for Education in Uganda (2014)
Working Paper: Loose Knots: Strong versus Weak Commitments to Save for Education in Uganda (2014)
Working Paper: Loose Knots: Strong versus Weak Commitments to Save for Education in Uganda (2014)
Working Paper: Loose Knots: Strong versus Weak Commitments to Save for Education in Uganda (2014)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:19863

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w19863

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().