The Today and Tomorrow of Kids

Marco Castillo, Paul Ferraro, Jeff Jordan and Ragan Petrie ()

No 2008-10, Experimental Economics Center Working Paper Series from Experimental Economics Center, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University

Abstract: We experimentally investigate the distribution of children's time preferences along gender and racial lines. We find that boys are more impatient than girls and black children are no more impatient than white children. However, this pattern hides the fact that black boys have the highest discount rates of all groups. Most importantly, we show that impatience has a direct effect on behavior. An increase of one standard deviation in the discount rate increases the probability that a child has at least 3 disciplinary referrals by 5 percent. Time preferences might play a large role in setting appropriate incentives for children.

New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp
Date: 2008-06
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