Do Discount Rates Change over Time? Experimental Evidence from Ethiopia

Heather Klemick and Mahmud Yesuf

RFF Working Paper Series from Resources for the Future

Abstract: This study tests the hyperbolic discounting hypothesis using real-payoff experiments in Ethiopia. We compared time preferences over cash and consumption goods and over different time horizons. We found that participants made consistent choices over time and that responses did not vary across payment type. However, participants offered an immediate payment option first selected the impatient reward more often than those offered a delayed payment initially. Participants with greater livestock wealth and smaller landholdings were more likely to select the patient reward.

Keywords: Field experiment; hyperbolic discounting; intertemporal choice (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 D90 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008-03-07
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.rff.org/RFF/documents/EfD-DP-08-06.pdf (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 404 Not Found (http://www.rff.org/RFF/documents/EfD-DP-08-06.pdf [301 Moved Permanently]--> https://www.rff.org/RFF/documents/EfD-DP-08-06.pdf)

Related works:
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:rff:dpaper:dp-08-06-efd

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in RFF Working Paper Series from Resources for the Future Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Resources for the Future ().