IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/labeco/v71y2021ics0927537121000634.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Heterogeneous effects of poverty on attention

Author

Listed:
  • Farbmacher, Helmut
  • Kögel, Heinrich
  • Spindler, Martin

Abstract

We examine heterogeneity in the effect of poor financial circumstances on attention. Our analysis uses data from an experiment, which randomly assigned low-income individuals to perform a cognitive test before or after payday. On average, and based on traditional subgroup analysis, the experiment did not suggest that the poorer financial circumstances before payday impeded cognitive function. Using the causal forest method, however, our heterogeneity analysis suggests that there are indeed detrimental effects among young and elderly individuals with very low incomes. We can confirm this finding in an independent experiment, using only traditional subgroup analysis.

Suggested Citation

  • Farbmacher, Helmut & Kögel, Heinrich & Spindler, Martin, 2021. "Heterogeneous effects of poverty on attention," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:labeco:v:71:y:2021:i:c:s0927537121000634
    DOI: 10.1016/j.labeco.2021.102028
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0927537121000634
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.labeco.2021.102028?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Anthony Strittmatter & Uwe Sunde & Dainis Zegners, 2020. "Life cycle patterns of cognitive performance over the long run," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 117(44), pages 27255-27261, November.
    2. Melvin Stephens Jr., 2003. ""3rd of tha Month": Do Social Security Recipients Smooth Consumption Between Checks?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(1), pages 406-422, March.
    3. Stefan Wager & Susan Athey, 2018. "Estimation and Inference of Heterogeneous Treatment Effects using Random Forests," Journal of the American Statistical Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 113(523), pages 1228-1242, July.
    4. Giovanni Mastrobuoni & Matthew Weinberg, 2009. "Heterogeneity in Intra-monthly Consumption Patterns, Self-Control, and Savings at Retirement," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 1(2), pages 163-189, August.
    5. Shapiro, Jesse M., 2005. "Is there a daily discount rate? Evidence from the food stamp nutrition cycle," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(2-3), pages 303-325, February.
    6. Bertrand, Marianne & Shafir, Eldar & Mullainathan, Sendhil, 2006. "Behavioral Economics and Marketing in Aid of Decision Making Among the Poor," Scholarly Articles 2962609, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    7. Susan Athey & Julie Tibshirani & Stefan Wager, 2016. "Generalized Random Forests," Papers 1610.01271, arXiv.org, revised Apr 2018.
    8. Leandro S. Carvalho & Stephan Meier & Stephanie W. Wang, 2016. "Poverty and Economic Decision-Making: Evidence from Changes in Financial Resources at Payday," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(2), pages 260-284, February.
    9. Marianne Bertrand & Sendhil Mullainathan & Eldar Shafir, 2004. "A Behavioral-Economics View of Poverty," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(2), pages 419-423, May.
    10. Stephens Melvin, 2006. "Paycheque Receipt and the Timing of Consumption," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 116(513), pages 680-701, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Bernard, René, 2022. "Mental Accounting and the Marginal Propensity to Consume," VfS Annual Conference 2022 (Basel): Big Data in Economics 264186, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    2. Timothée Demont & Daniela Horta Sáenz & Eva Raiber, 2023. "Turning worries into cognitive performance: Results from an online experiment during Covid," Working Papers hal-03953178, HAL.
    3. Bernard, René, 2023. "Mental accounting and the marginal propensity to consume," Discussion Papers 13/2023, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    4. Sharafi, Zahra, 2023. "Poverty and perseverance: The detrimental effect of poverty on effort provision," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 162(C).
    5. Eva Raiber & Daniela Horta Saenz & Timothée Demont, 2023. "Turning worries into performance: Results from an online experiment during COVID," French Stata Users' Group Meetings 2023 08, Stata Users Group.
    6. Strittmatter, Anthony, 2023. "What is the value added by using causal machine learning methods in a welfare experiment evaluation?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).

    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. Marieke Bos & Chloé Le Coq & Peter van Santen, 2022. "Scarcity and consumers’ credit choices," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 92(1), pages 105-139, February.
    2. Dahan, Momi & Sayag, Doron, 2024. "Scarcity and consumption priorities," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    3. Momi Dahan, 2021. "Poverty and economic behavior: gambling on social security paydays," International Gambling Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(1), pages 38-58, January.
    4. Mika Akesaka & Peter Eibich & Chie Hanaoka & Hitoshi Shigeoka, 2023. "Temporal Instability of Risk Preference among the Poor: Evidence from Payday Cycles," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 15(4), pages 68-99, October.
    5. Frederik Plesner Lyngse, 2020. "Liquidity Constraints and Demand for Healthcare: Evidence from Danish Welfare Recipients," Papers 2010.14651, arXiv.org.
    6. Angelucci, Manuela & Chiapa, Carlos & Prina, Silvia & Rojas, Irvin, 2021. "Transitory Income Changes and Consumption Smoothing: Evidence from Mexico," IZA Discussion Papers 14452, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Frederik Plesner Lyngse, 2020. "Liquidity Constraints and Demand for Healthcare: Evidence from Danish Welfare Recipients," CEBI working paper series 20-28, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics. The Center for Economic Behavior and Inequality (CEBI).
    8. Momi Dahan & Udi Nisan, 2020. "Late Payments, Liquidity Constraints and the Mismatch between Due Dates and Paydays," CESifo Working Paper Series 8733, CESifo.
    9. Albert, Aaron & Wozny, Nathan, 2023. "Income variation and excess sensitivity of goods-intensive leisure," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    10. Cotti, Chad & Gordanier, John & Ozturk, Orgul, 2018. "When does it count? The timing of food stamp receipt and educational performance," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 40-50.
    11. Vellekoop, Nathanael, 2018. "Explaining intra-monthly consumption patterns: The timing of income or the timing of consumption commitments?," SAFE Working Paper Series 237, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE.
    12. Macchiavello, Rocco & Casaburi, Lorenzo, 2015. "Firm and Market Response to Saving Constraints: Evidence from the Kenyan Dairy Industry," CEPR Discussion Papers 10952, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    13. Andersson, Elvira & Lundborg, Petter & Vikström, Johan, 2015. "Income receipt and mortality — Evidence from Swedish public sector employees," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 21-32.
    14. Fuchs-Schündeln, N. & Hassan, T.A., 2016. "Natural Experiments in Macroeconomics," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 923-1012, Elsevier.
    15. Inés Berniell, 2018. "Pay Cycles: Individual and Aggregate Effects of Paycheck Frequency," CEDLAS, Working Papers 0221, CEDLAS, Universidad Nacional de La Plata.
    16. Melvin Stephens & Takashi Unayama, 2019. "Estimating the Impacts of Program Benefits: Using Instrumental Variables with Underreported and Imputed Data," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 101(3), pages 468-475, July.
    17. Giovanni Mastrobuoni & Matthew Weinberg, 2009. "Heterogeneity in Intra-monthly Consumption Patterns, Self-Control, and Savings at Retirement," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 1(2), pages 163-189, August.
    18. Bos, Marieke & Le Coq, Chloé & van Santen, Peter, 2016. "Economic Scarcity and Consumers’ Credit Choice," Working Paper Series 329, Sveriges Riksbank (Central Bank of Sweden).
    19. Evans, William N. & Moore, Timothy J., 2011. "The short-term mortality consequences of income receipt," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(11), pages 1410-1424.
    20. García, Juan R. & Pacce, Matías & Rodrigo, Tomasa & Ruiz de Aguirre, Pep & Ulloa, Camilo A., 2021. "Measuring and forecasting retail trade in real time using card transactional data," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 1235-1246.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Poverty; Cognition; Attention; Heterogeneous effects; Causal forest;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D14 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Saving; Personal Finance
    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
    • I32 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Measurement and Analysis of Poverty

    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:eee:labeco:v:71:y:2021:i:c:s0927537121000634. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/labeco .

    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.