Growth theory has traditionally assumed the existence of an aggregate production function,
whose existence and properties are closely tied to the assumption of optimal resource …

Using data from a field experiment in Kenya, we document that providing individuals with
simple informal savings technologies can substantially increase investment in preventative …

Successful development programs rely on people to behave and choose in certain ways,
and behavioral economics helps us understand why people behave and choose as they do …

This paper develops a theory of socially determined aspirations, and the interaction of those
aspirations with growth and inequality. The interaction is bidirectional: economy‐wide …

Even among households with similar socioeconomic characteristics, saving and wealth vary
considerably. Life-cycle models attribute this variation to differences in time preference rates …

This paper argues that the relation between temptations and the level of consumption plays
a key role in explaining the observed behaviors of the poor. Temptation goods are defined to …

Economic theory and conventional wisdom suggest that time preference can cause or
perpetuate poverty. Might poverty also or instead cause impatient or impulsive behavior …

We argue that poverty can perpetuate itself by undermining the capacity for self‐control. In
line with a distinguished psychological literature, we consider modes of self‐control that …

THE PURPOSE OF THIS PAPER is to study how an infinitely-lived consumer with"
quasigeometric" discounting-thought of as represented by a sequence of" selves" with …

Public economics has positive and normative objectives; it aims both to describe the effects
of public policies and to evaluate them. This agenda requires us to formulate models of …