Hope as Aspirations, Agency, and Pathways: Poverty Dynamics and Microfinance in Oaxaca, Mexico

Travis Lybbert and Bruce Wydick

No 22661, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Work in positive psychology decomposes hope into aspirations, agency, and pathways. Operating in the context of an economic model developed with this framework, we review the literature on hope from philosophy, theology, psychology, and its relationship to emerging work on aspirations in development economics. We then present one-month follow-up results from an experimental study based on a hope intervention in Oaxaca, Mexico among 601 indigenous women with access to microfinance loans. Our early experimental results suggest that the intervention raised aspirations approximately a quarter of a standard deviation, significantly raised a hope index among the treated subjects, and had positive but statistically insignificant results on enterprise revenues and profits.

JEL-codes: O12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp and nep-mfd
Note: DEV
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Published as Hope as Aspirations, Agency, and Pathways: Poverty Dynamics and Microfinance in Oaxaca, Mexico , Travis J. Lybbert, Bruce Wydick. in The Economics of Poverty Traps , Barrett, Carter, and Chavas. 2019

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Chapter: Hope as Aspirations, Agency, and Pathways: Poverty Dynamics and Microfinance in Oaxaca, Mexico (2017)
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