Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-01T03:07:14.728Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Stuff goes wrong, so act now

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2017

Michala Iben Riis-Vestergaard
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology and Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08540. [email protected]@princeton.eduhttp://www.princeton.edu/joha/
Johannes Haushofer
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology and Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08540. [email protected]@princeton.eduhttp://www.princeton.edu/joha/

Abstract

Pepper & Nettle make an ambitious and compelling attempt to isolate a common cause of what they call the behavioral constellation of deprivation. We agree with the authors that limited control can indeed help explain part of the difference in observed present-oriented behavior between the poor and the rich. However, we suggest that mortality risk is not the primary mechanism leading to this apparent impatience.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Andreoni, J. & Sprenger, C. (2012) Risk preferences are not time preferences. American Economic Review 102(7):3357–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carvalho, L. S., Meier, S. & Wang, S. W. (2016) Poverty and economic decision-making: Evidence from changes in financial resources at payday. American Economic Review 106(2):260–84.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Haushofer, J. (2015) The cost of keeping track. Working paper. Available at: https://www.princeton.edu/~joha/publications/Haushofer_CostofKeepingTrack_2015.pdf.Google Scholar
Heimer, R., Myrseth, K. O. R. & Schoenle, R. (2017) YOLO: Mortality beliefs and household finance puzzles. FRB of Cleveland Working Paper No. 15-21. Available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2669484.Google Scholar
Wang, M., Reiger, M. O. & Hens, T. (2016) How time preferences differ: Evidence from 53 countries. Journal of Economic Psychology 52:115–35.Google Scholar