Is Patience Malleable via Educational Intervention? Evidence on the Role of Age in Field Experiments

Tim Kaiser, Lukas Menkhoff and Luis Oberrauch ()
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Luis Oberrauch: University of Kaiserslautern

No 16399, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We study the age-dependent malleability of patience via educational interventions designed to foster financial decision-making capabilities and to induce a more future-oriented mindset. We conduct a field experiment covering both youths and adults in Uganda and aggregate evidence from earlier experiments to study the generalizability of effects. In our field experiment, we find heterogenous effects by age: adults' patience and discount factors are unaffected by the intervention after 15 months follow-up, but we observe large effects on patience and estimated discount factors and field saving behavior for youth. In the meta-analysis, we find that the results are generalizable across contexts.

Keywords: patience; time preferences; malleability; field experiment; educational intervention (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 D15 G53 I21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 68 pages
Date: 2023-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe and nep-exp
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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