Andreoni James, Kuhn Michael A, List John A, Samek Anya, Sokal Kevin, Sprenger Charles
University of California, San Diego.
NBER.
J Public Econ. 2019 Sep;177. doi: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2019.06.007. Epub 2019 Aug 14.
Time preferences have been correlated with a range of life outcomes, yet little is known about their early development. We conduct a field experiment to elicit time preferences of over 1,200 children ages 3-12, who make several intertemporal decisions. To shed light on how such primitives form, we explore various channels that might affect time preferences, from background characteristics to the causal impact of an early schooling program that we developed and operated. Our results suggest that time preferences evolve substantially during this period, with younger children displaying more impatience than older children. We also find a strong association with race: black children, relative to white or Hispanic children, are more impatient. Finally, assignment to different schooling opportunities is not significantly associated with child time preferences.
时间偏好已与一系列生活结果相关联，但对其早期发展却知之甚少。我们进行了一项实地实验，以引出1200多名3至12岁儿童的时间偏好，这些儿童做出了几个跨期决策。为了阐明这些原始偏好是如何形成的，我们探索了各种可能影响时间偏好的渠道，从背景特征到我们开发并实施的一个早期教育项目的因果影响。我们的结果表明，在此期间时间偏好会大幅演变，年幼儿童比年长儿童表现出更多的不耐烦。我们还发现与种族有很强的关联：相对于白人或西班牙裔儿童，黑人儿童更不耐烦。最后，被分配到不同的教育机会与儿童的时间偏好没有显著关联。
