IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/chm/wpaper/wp2012-1.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Myopic preferences or subsistence income? Why do rickshaw cyclists rent the cycle?

Author

Listed:
  • Magnus Hatlebakk

Abstract

One year rent is sufficient to buy a rickshaw in the plains of Nepal, while a rickshaw will last many years, so purchase appears very profitable. Still most cyclists rent the rickshaw. Based on choices made by rickshaw pullers between hypothetical financing schemes for rickshaws we investigate whether the explanation is a high time-preference rate or a high elasticity of the marginal utility of consumption, which in turn can be explained by preferences that are formed by consumption near a subsistence level. We find that subsistence constraints are more important than myopic preferences.

Suggested Citation

  • Magnus Hatlebakk, 2012. "Myopic preferences or subsistence income? Why do rickshaw cyclists rent the cycle?," CMI Working Papers 1, CMI (Chr. Michelsen Institute), Bergen, Norway.
    • Handle: RePEc:chm:wpaper:wp2012-1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cmi.no/publications/file/4368-myopic-preferences-or-subsistence-income.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Pender, John L., 1996. "Discount rates and credit markets: Theory and evidence from rural india," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 257-296, August.
    2. Robert H. Frank, 2005. "Positional Externalities Cause Large and Preventable Welfare Losses," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(2), pages 137-141, May.
    3. Masao Ogaki & Andrew Atkeson, 1997. "Rate Of Time Preference, Intertemporal Elasticity Of Substitution, And Level Of Wealth," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 79(4), pages 564-572, November.
    4. Magnus Hatlebakk, 2009. "Capacity‐constrained Collusive Price Discrimination in the Informal Rural Credit Markets of Nepal," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 13(1), pages 70-86, February.
    5. Juan Camilo Cardenas & Jeffrey Carpenter, 2008. "Behavioural Development Economics: Lessons from Field Labs in the Developing World," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(3), pages 311-338.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Are rickshaw pullers myopic?
      by Economic Logician in Economic Logic on 2012-04-17 19:54:00

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Magnus Hatlebakk, 2014. "Poverty Dynamics in Rural Orissa: Transitions in Assets and Occupations over Generations," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(6), pages 877-893, June.
    2. Espen Villanger, 2015. "Entrepreneurial Abilities and Barriers to Microenterprise Growth: A Case Study in Nepal," Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Emerging Economies, Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India, vol. 24(2), pages 115-147, September.
    3. Soldatos, Gerasimos T., 2015. "Law, Coercion, And Socioeconomic Equilibrium," MPRA Paper 68953, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Gerasimos T. SOLDATOS, 2015. "Law, Coercion And Socioeconomic Equilibrium," Review of Economic and Business Studies, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, issue 16, pages 39-50, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Teh, Louise S.L. & Teh, Lydia C.L. & Rashid Sumaila, U., 2014. "Time preference of small-scale fishers in open access and traditionally managed reef fisheries," Marine Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 222-231.
    2. Juan Camilo Cardenas & Jeffrey P. Carpenter, 2005. "Experiments and Economic Development: Lessons from Field Labs in the Developing World," Middlebury College Working Paper Series 0505, Middlebury College, Department of Economics.
    3. Ken-Ichi Hirose & Shinsuke Ikeda, 2015. "Decreasing Marginal Impatience and Capital Accumulation in a Two-Country World Economy," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 66(3), pages 474-507, July.
    4. Meysonnat, Aline & Muysken, Joan & Zon, Adriaan van, 2015. "Poverty traps: the neglected role of vitality," MERIT Working Papers 2015-052, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    5. Michal Bauer & Julie Chytilova & Jonathan Morduch, 2012. "Behavioral Foundations of Microcredit: Experimental and Survey Evidence from Rural India," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(2), pages 1118-1139, April.
    6. Tomomi Tanaka & Colin F. Camerer & Quang Nguyen, 2010. "Risk and Time Preferences: Linking Experimental and Household Survey Data from Vietnam," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(1), pages 557-571, March.
    7. Juan Camilo Cardenas & Jeffrey Carpenter, 2008. "Behavioural Development Economics: Lessons from Field Labs in the Developing World," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(3), pages 311-338.
    8. Roland Cheo & Kainan Huang & Jingping Li, 2023. "Group cooperation of village officials in Chinese rural resettlement: A lab in the field," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 41(2), pages 388-407, April.
    9. Liebenehm, S. & Waibel, H., 2014. "Risk and Time Preferences of West African Cattle Farmers," Proceedings “Schriften der Gesellschaft für Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften des Landbaues e.V.”, German Association of Agricultural Economists (GEWISOLA), vol. 49, March.
    10. Michal Bauer & Julie Chytilová, 2013. "Women, Children and Patience: Experimental Evidence from Indian Villages," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 17(4), pages 662-675, November.
    11. Liebenehm, Sabine & Waibel, Hermann, 2012. "Simultaneous estimation of risk and time preferences among small-scale cattle farmers in West Africa," Hannover Economic Papers (HEP) dp-501, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät.
    12. Holden, Stein, 2013. "High discount rates: - An artifact caused by poorly framed experiments or a result of people being poor and vulnerable?," CLTS Working Papers 8/13, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Centre for Land Tenure Studies, revised 10 Oct 2019.
    13. Cardenas, Juan Camilo & Carpenter, Jeffrey, 2013. "Risk attitudes and economic well-being in Latin America," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 52-61.
    14. Liebenehm, Sabine & Waibel, Hermann, 2013. "Risk and Time Preferences of West African Cattle Farmers," 53rd Annual Conference, Berlin, Germany, September 25-27, 2013 156110, German Association of Agricultural Economists (GEWISOLA).
    15. Di Falco, Salvatore & Berck, Peter & Bezabih, Mintewab & Köhlin, Gunnar, 2019. "Rain and impatience: Evidence from rural Ethiopia," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 40-51.
    16. Teklewold, Hailemariam, 2011. "Farming or burning? shadow prices and farmer’s impatience on the allocation of multi-purpose resource in the mixed farming system of Ethiopia," 2011 International Congress, August 30-September 2, 2011, Zurich, Switzerland 116080, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    17. Erich Gundlach, 2003. "Growth Effects of EU Membership: The Case of East Germany," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 30(3), pages 237-270, September.
    18. Grossmann, Volker & Larin, Benjamin & Löfflad, Hans Torben & Steger, Thomas, 2021. "Distributional consequences of surging housing rents," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 196(C).
    19. Kerri Brick & Martine Visser & Justine Burns, 2012. "Risk Aversion: Experimental Evidence from South African Fishing Communities," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 94(1), pages 133-152.
    20. Anne Corcos & Yorgos Rizopoulos, 2011. "Is prosocial behavior egocentric? The “invisible hand” of emotions," Post-Print halshs-01968213, HAL.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Investment behavior; Poverty; Time-preferences;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:chm:wpaper:wp2012-1. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Robert Sjursen (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cmiiino.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.