Doctoral Dissertation Research in Economics: Income, cognitive tax, and economic decision-making among the urban poor

经济学博士论文研究：城市贫民的收入、认知税和经济决策

• 批准号: 1949331
• 负责人: John Hoddinott
• 金额: $ 2.4万
• 依托单位: Cornell University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2020-05-01 至 2021-04-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1949331&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Economics; Income

Research indicates that financial stress faced by the poor reduces their abilities to make informed choices (cognitive constraints). This results in inefficient decision-making among the poor in countries around the world. For example, the poor frequently do not take advantage of poverty-reducing programs and services in both developing and developed countries. This study explores whether these cognitive constraints explain inefficient economic decisions and behaviors observed among the poor. This research project focuses on informal workers in urban areas whose incomes fluctuate substantially in the short-term, in ways that are both expected and unexpected. The experiment involves giving some entrepreneurs in the informal sector (treated group) unexpected increased income through large unexpected purchases and offer them tasks that involve business decision making. By comparing decision-making ability of the treated with those of not treated, the researchers will be able to draw policy implications from the experiment. This research will indicate the potential demand for such policy design solutions as nudging reminders, default enrolment, and timing application of procedures to coincide with periods of higher cognition. The results of this research will help develop policies to improve decision making of people with cognitive constraints, hence increase the take-up rate of poverty reducing programs among the poor. This will help establish the US as the global leader in poverty reduction research.To understand the relationship between income and economic decision-making, this research project will conduct a lab-in-the-field experiment in an urban informal markets. The experiment is designed to test the hypothesis that an increase in income leads to improved economic decision-making. This research exploits the timing of market days to study the effect of increases in income and send mystery shoppers to make purchases from the traders to generate realistic, but unexpected increases in income. Following these income shocks, the PIs then measure economic decision-making using an incentivized, menu choice game that assesses consistency of decision-making ability and assess real-life economic decision-making by providing traders with information about an opportunity to receive free mobile credit. Finally, the PIs will measure attention and working memory to assess the cognitive mechanism. The results of this research will help develop policies to improve decision making of people with cognitive constraints, hence increase the take-up rate of poverty reducing programs among the poor. This will help establish the US as the global leader in poverty reduction research.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

研究表明，穷人面临的经济压力降低了他们做出知情选择的能力(认知限制)。这导致世界各国穷人的决策效率低下。例如，在发展中国家和发达国家，穷人往往没有利用减贫方案和服务。这项研究探索了这些认知限制是否解释了穷人中观察到的低效经济决策和行为。这一研究项目的重点是城市地区的非正规工人，他们的收入在短期内以预期和意想不到的方式大幅波动。这项实验包括通过大量的意外购买，让非正规部门的一些企业家(治疗组)意外增加收入，并为他们提供涉及商业决策的任务。通过比较接受治疗和未接受治疗的人的决策能力，研究人员将能够从实验中得出政策含义。这项研究将指出对政策设计解决方案的潜在需求，如轻推提醒、默认入学和程序的时间应用，以与较高认知阶段相吻合。这项研究的结果将有助于制定政策，改善认知障碍者的决策，从而提高贫困人口对减贫计划的接受率。这将有助于确立美国在减贫研究方面的全球领先地位。为了了解收入和经济决策之间的关系，该研究项目将在城市非正式市场进行实地实验室实验。这项实验旨在检验这样一种假设，即收入增加会改善经济决策。这项研究利用集市日的时机来研究收入增加的影响，并让神秘的购物者从交易员那里进行购买，从而产生现实但意想不到的收入增长。在这些收入冲击之后，PI然后使用激励的菜单选择游戏来衡量经济决策，该游戏评估决策能力的一致性，并通过向交易员提供有关获得免费移动信贷的机会的信息来评估现实生活中的经济决策。最后，PI将测量注意力和工作记忆，以评估认知机制。这项研究的结果将有助于制定政策，改善认知障碍者的决策，从而提高贫困人口对减贫计划的接受率。这将有助于确立美国作为全球减贫研究领导者的地位。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。