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

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。本研究探讨了这些认知限制是否可以解释在穷人中观察到的低效率的经济决策和行为。本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外的方式大幅波动。实验涉及通过大量意外购买，使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。 通过比较接受治疗者和未接受治疗者的决策能力，研究人员将能够从实验中得出政策含义。这项研究将表明潜在的需求，如轻推提醒，默认注册，并定时应用程序，以配合更高的认知时期的政策设计解决方案。 本研究的结果将有助于制定政策，以改善决策的人的认知限制，从而提高贫困人口的减贫计划的接受率。 这将有助于美国成为全球减贫研究的领导者。为了了解收入与经济决策之间的关系，本研究项目将在城市非正式市场进行现场实验室实验。该实验旨在检验收入增加导致经济决策改善的假设。这项研究利用市场日的时间来研究收入增加的影响，并派遣神秘购物者从交易员那里购买，以产生现实的，但意想不到的收入增加。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，并通过向交易者提供有关获得免费移动的信贷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。 本研究的结果将有助于制定政策，以改善决策的人的认知限制，从而提高贫困人口的减贫计划的接受率。 该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

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.