Time Preference & Cognition Survey 2009 - 2010 (Malawi)

Abstract

The data accompanies the paper: Revising Commitments: Field Evidence on the Adjustment of Prior Choices. The very poor in developing countries often make intertemporal choices that seem at odds with their individual self-interest. We investigate these choices with a lab-in-the-field experiment in rural Malawi. We make two contributions. First, we construct a new dependent variable: revisions of prior choices regarding the allocation of future income. This allows us to directly examine intertemporal choice revision and its determinants. In particular, this dependent variable permits a novel test for the existence of self-control problems: we find that revisions of money allocations toward the present are positively correlated with present-bias as well as the (randomly assigned) closeness in time between the revision decision and disbursement. Second, we investigate other potential determinants of revision. We find little evidence that revisions of money allocations toward the present are associated with spousal preferences, household shocks or the financial sophistication of respondents.