Financial Stress, Decision Bias, and the Well-being of Low Income Older Households

财务压力、决策偏差与低收入老年家庭的幸福感 本项目将调查财务压力是否影响决策。最近在心理学和经济学方面的研究认为，资源稀缺改变了人们看待问题和做出决策的方式（例如，Shah et al. 2012），这可以解释为什么穷人经常从事加剧贫困状况的行为。这种贫穷心理如果导致穷人作出不好的健康决定，就可能成为社会经济服务-健康梯度的基础。更重要的是，这将意味着健康状况不佳和贫穷的自我强化循环。健康状况不佳的人，生产力和工资都较低，更有可能承受经济压力，这反过来又会导致他们做出糟糕的经济和健康决定，从而恶化他们的健康和经济状况。决策不当也可能危及老年的经济保障。 然而，它是具有挑战性的实证检验财务压力是否影响决策。首先，这种关系可能会朝着相反的方向发展：决策可能会影响一个人经历财务压力的机会。这种关系也可能被未观察到的第三个因素（如认知能力）所混淆。 我们建议研究的因果关系，金融压力对决策的影响，利用流动性在发薪日急剧中断。先前的研究表明，社会保障和食品券领取者的支出和热量摄入在发薪日急剧增加。这种模式只在储蓄很少的家庭中观察到，表明家庭在发薪日之前经历了更大的财务压力。 为了利用发薪日的不连续性，我们将使用一种独特的调查设计来收集数据，在这种设计中，参与者在发薪日之前被随机选择接受调查（即，治疗）或发薪日之后（即，对照）。我们将使用基于互联网的纵向调查，有5,000多名受访者，RAND-USC美国生活小组（ALP），这使我们能够操纵每个受访者接受采访的日期。我们将调查治疗组是否比对照组更容易表现出决策偏差，如使用语言学、现在偏差、窄括号和框架效应。随机化意味着两个群体的测量决策的任何差异都可以归因于在发薪日之前或之后接受调查的影响。一项试点研究的结果显示，在发薪日支出的不连续变化，表明研究设计是成功的捕捉财务压力的变化。 目前的项目将作出若干贡献。首先，据我们所知，这项研究将是第一项研究，以探讨是否财务压力因果影响决策。第二，通过提供直接证据来证明财务压力与决策之间是否存在因果关系，本研究将有助于我们理解选择的异质性。最后，决策者也将对结果感兴趣。如果财政压力对决策有因果关系，这将表明社会计划的重要性，这些计划可以打破健康状况不佳和贫困的恶性循环。

Financial Stress, Decision Bias, and the Well-being of Low Income Older Households This project will investigate whether financial stress affects decision-making. Recent work in psychology and economics argues that resource scarcity changes how people look at problems and make decisions (e.g., Shah et al. 2012), which could explain why the poor often engage in behaviors that reinforce their conditions of poverty. Such psychology of poverty may underlie the SES-health gradient if it leads the poor to make bad health decisions. More importantly, it would imply a self-reinforcing cycle of poor health and poverty. Individuals in poor health, who have lower productivity and lower wages, are more likely to be financially stressed, which in turn would lead them to make bad economic and health decisions—worsening their health and their economic circumstances. Poor decision-making may also put financial security in old age at risk. However, it is empirically challenging to test whether financial stress affects decision-making. First, the relationship may go in the opposite direction: Decision-making may affect the chances of one experiencing financial stress. The relationship may also be confounded by unobserved third factors such as cognitive ability. We propose to study the causal effect of financial stress on decision-making by exploiting the sharp discontinuity in liquidity at payday. Previous work has shown that the expenditures and the caloric intake of Social Security and Food Stamp recipients increase sharply at payday. This pattern is observed only for households with little savings, indicating households experience increased financial stress right before payday. To exploit the discontinuity at payday, we will collect data using a unique survey design in which participants are randomly selected to be surveyed before payday (i.e., treatment) or after payday (i.e., control). We will use an Internet-based longitudinal survey with 5,000+ respondents, the RAND-USC American Life Panel (ALP), which allows us to manipulate the date at which each respondent is interviewed. We will investigate whether the treatment group is more likely to exhibit decision-making biases—such as the use of heuristics, present bias, narrow bracketing, and framing effects—than the control group. The randomization implies that any differences in the measured decision-making of the two groups can be attributed to the effect of being surveyed before or after payday. Results from a pilot study show a discontinuous change in expenditures at payday, indicating the study design is successful in capturing changes in financial stress. The current project would make several contributions. First, to the best of our knowledge, this study would be the first study to examine whether financial stress causally affects decision-making. Second, by providing direct evidences on whether there is a causal link between financial stress and decision-making, this research will contribute to our understanding of heterogeneity in choices. Finally, the results will also be of interest to policymakers. If financial stress has a causal effect on decision-making, it would indicate the importance of social programs that could break a perverse and self-reinforcing cycle of poor health and poverty.