Preferences and Poverty Traps: Experimental Investigations of Risk, Time and Social Preferences in Two Poor Neighborhoods

实验经济学正在走出实验室。实地实验使研究人员能够在自然环境中检查行为，并调查新的和以前未开发的受试者群体的偏好。这项研究有可能对与政策有关的问题产生重要的见解。 该项目通过收集两个贫困的少数民族社区居民的风险、时间和社会偏好来促进这一奋进。这些社区在收入和许多其他人口统计学上相似，除了种族：南达拉斯主要是非洲裔美国人社区，而东达拉斯主要是西班牙裔社区。我们使用实验和调查来衡量偏好和行为。决定表格是为识字率低的人口设计的，游戏以图形形式呈现，文字最少。该调查用于收集有关人口统计、社交网络、身份、社会偏好、房屋所有权、对非营利组织的捐款以及志愿者工作的信息。 调查人员使用收集的数据来调查一些问题。首先，他们将从这一人群中得出的风险，时间和社会偏好与我们通常在实验室和非贫困人群中看到的情况进行比较。 他们预计，这种比较将说明贫困陷阱的一些原因和后果。第二，他们比较两个群体之间的风险、时间和社会偏好，以便更好地了解最贫穷群体的文化差异，以及两个社区之间经济表现和发展速度的差异。第三，他们研究了风险，时间和社会偏好对自我报告和调查中收集的实际行为的相关性和因果关系（通过中介和适度分析），包括房屋所有权率，储蓄决策，教育决策，慈善捐赠和其他行为。这项研究的最后一个贡献是更深入地了解了一个特定样本的偏好，这将证明对未来几十年美国经济的增长很重要：低收入的西班牙裔。这项研究将我们对风险，时间和社会偏好的个体差异的认识扩展到一个新的主题池;低收入少数民族。将这些偏好与典型抽样的中产阶级人口的偏好进行比较，并研究它们对现实世界经济决策的影响，将有助于深入了解贫困陷阱的原因和后果。比较这两个主题库之间的这些偏好将提供对文化差异的见解，并提供新的见解，使个人能够摆脱贫困陷阱和社区发展。更广泛的影响：首先，这些结果提供了一个新的和急需的描述性帐户的内部运作的贫困社区，改善低收入的城市社区和帮助个人克服贫困陷阱的影响。研究贫困的西班牙裔人口本身的偏好将增加我们对未来几十年最有可能为美国经济增长和竞争力做出贡献的个人的理解。第二，这一努力可以进一步完善对偏好的实验性衡量标准，这些标准经过微调，最有效地吸引贫穷、识字率低的人口的偏好。这些措施对更广泛的经济学和社会科学界的其他研究人员是有用的。第三，研究涉及几个本科研究助理谁将获得宝贵的，动手研究经验和指导的参与。

Experimental economics is moving out of the lab. Field experiments allow researchers to examine behavior in a natural setting, and to investigate the preferences of new and previously-untapped subject pools. This research has the potential to generate important insights into policy-relevant questions. This project contributes to this endeavor by collecting risk, time and social preferences from residents of two poor, minority neighborhoods. These neighborhoods are similar in income and many other demographics, with the exception of race: South Dallas is primarily an African-American community, while East Dallas is primarily a Hispanic community. We use experiments and surveys to measure preferences and behavior. The decision forms are designed for a low-literacy population, with the games presented in pictorial form with minimal text. The survey is used to collect information on demographics, social networks, identity, social preferences, home ownership, and donations to nonprofits as well as volunteer work. The investigators use the data collected to investigate a number of questions. First, they compare the risk, time and social preferences elicited from this population with those we typically see in the lab and among non-poor populations in the field. They anticipate that this comparison will illustrate some of the causes and consequences of poverty traps. Second, they compare the risk, time and social preferences between the two populations in order to better understand cultural differences that show up in the poorest segment of the population, as well as differences in economic performance and development rates between the two communities. Third, they examine the correlations and causality (through mediation and moderation analysis) of risk, time and social preferences on self-reported and actual behavior as collected in the survey, including home ownership rates, savings decisions, educational decisions, charitable giving and other behaviors. A final contribution of the research is a deeper understanding of preferences of a particular sample that will prove important to the growth of the US economy over the next several decades: low-income Hispanics. This research extends our knowledge about individual variation in risk, time, and social preferences to a new subject pool; low-income minorities. Comparing these preferences with those of the middle-class populations typically sampled, and examining their impact on real-world economic decisions will provide insights into the causes and consequences of poverty traps. Comparing these preferences between these two subject pools will provide insights into cultural differences and provide new insights into what enables individuals to escape poverty traps and neighborhoods to develop. Broader Impacts: First, these results provide a new and much-needed descriptive account of the inner workings of poor neighborhoods, with implications for improving low-income urban neighborhoods and helping individuals to overcome poverty traps. Examining the preferences of the poor Hispanic population per se will increase our understanding of individuals most likely to be contributing to US growth and competitiveness in the coming decades. Second, this effort allow further refinement in experimental measures of preferences that are fine-tuned to be most effective in eliciting preferences of poor, low-literacy populations. These measures are useful to other researchers in the broader economics and social science community. Third, the research involves the participation of several undergraduate research assistants who will receive valuable, hands-on research experience and mentoring.