Why don't the poor save more? Evidence from health savings experiments

American Economic Review

Volumn 103, Issue 4, 2013, Pages 1138-1171

  Dupas, Pascaline ^a   Robinson, Jonathan ^b  

^a STANFORD UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^b UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

COST; DEVELOPING COUNTRY; ECONOMICS; FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT; HEALTH BEHAVIOR; HUMAN; KENYA; MOTIVATION; POVERTY; PREVENTIVE HEALTH SERVICE; UTILIZATION;

DEVELOPING COUNTRIES; FINANCING, PERSONAL; GOALS; HEALTH BEHAVIOR; HUMANS; KENYA; MEDICAL SAVINGS ACCOUNTS; POVERTY; PREVENTIVE HEALTH SERVICES;

EID: 84879180102     PISSN: 00028282     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1257/aer.103.4.1138     Document Type: Review

References (43)

1. Anderson, Siwan, and Jean-Marie Baland. 2002. "The Economics of Roscas and Intrahousehold Resource Allocation." Quarterly Journal of Economics 117 (3): 963-95.
2. Anderson, Siwan, Jean-Marie Baland, and Karl Ove Moene. 2009. "Enforcement in Informal Saving Groups." Journal of Development Economics 90 (1): 14-23.
3. Ashraf, Nava. 2009. "Spousal Control and Intra-household Decision Making: An Experimental Study in the Philippines." American Economic Review 99 (4): 1245-77.
4. Ashraf, Nava, Dean Karlan, and Wesley Yin. 2006a. "Tying Odysseus to the Mast: Evidence from a Commitment Savings Product in the Philippines." Quarterly Journal of Economics 121 (2): 635-72.
5. Ashraf, Nava, Dean Karlan, and Wesley Yin. 2006b. "Household Decision Making and Savings Impacts: Further Evidence from a Commitment Savings Product in the Philippines." Unpublished.
6. Baland, Jean-Marie, Catherine Guirkinger, and Charlotte Mali. 2011. "Pretending to be Poor: Borrowing to Escape Forced Solidarity in Cameroon." Economic Development and Cultural Change 60 (1): 1-16.
7. Banerjee, Abhijit V., and Esther Duflo. 2007. "The Economic Lives of the Poor." Journal of Economic Perspectives 21 (1): 141-67.
8. Banerjee, Abhijit V., and Esther Duflo. 2011. Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty. New York: Perseus Books, PublicAffairs.
9. Banerjee, Abhijit V., and Sendhil Mullainathan. 2010. "The Shape of Temptation: Implications for the Economic Lives of the Poor." National Bureau of Economic Research Paper 15973.
10. Basu, Karna. 2011. "Hyperbolic Discounting and the Sustainability of Rotational Savings Arrangements." American Economic Journal: Microeconomics 3 (4): 143-71.
11. Bauer, Michal, Julie Chytilová, and Jonathan Morduch. 2012. "Behavioral Foundations of Microcredit: Experimental and Survey Evidence from Rural India." American Economic Review 102 (2): 1118-39.
12. Bernheim, B. Douglas, Debraj Ray, and Sevin Yeltekin. 1999. "Self Control, Saving, and the Low Asset Trap." Unpublished.
13. Bernheim, B. Douglas, Debraj Ray, and Sevin Yeltekin. 2011. "Poverty and Self-Control." Unpublished.
14. Besley, Timothy, Stephen Coate, and Glenn Loury. 1993. "The Economics of Rotating Savings and Credit Associations." American Economic Review 83 (4): 792-810.
15. Brune, Lasse, Xavier Giné, Jessica Goldberg, and Dean Yang. 2012. "Commitments to Save: A Field Experiment in Rural Malawi." Unpublished.
16. Chandrasekhar, Arun G., Cynthia Kinnan, and Horacio Larreguy. 2011. "Informal Insurance, Social Networks, and Savings Access: Evidence from a Lab Experiment in the Field." Unpublished.
17. Choi, James J., David Laibson, and Brigitte C. Madrian. 2011. "$100 Bills on the Sidewalk: Suboptimal Investment in 401(K) Plans." Review of Economics and Statistics 93 (3): 748-63.
18. Cohen, Jessica, Pascaline Dupas, and Simone Schaner. 2011. "Price Subsidies, Diagnostic Tests and Targeting of Malaria Treatment: Evidence from a Randomized Controlled Trial." Unpublished.
19. Collins, Daryl, Jonathan Morduch, Stuart Rutherford, and Orlanda Ruthven. 2009. Portfolios of the Poor: How the World's Poor Live on $2 a Day. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
20. DellaVigna, Stefano, and Ulrike Malmendier. 2006. "Paying Not to Go to the Gym." The American Economic Review 96 (3): 694-719.
21. Devoto, Florencia, Esther Duflo, Pascaline Dupas, William Pariente, and Vincent Pons. 2012. "Happiness on Tap: Piped Water Adoption in Urban Morocco." American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 4 (4): 68-99.
22. Duflo, Esther, Michael Kremer, and Jonathan Robinson. 2011. "Nudging Farmers to Use Fertilizer: Theory and Experimental Evidence from Kenya." American Economic Review 101 (6): 2350-90.
23. Dupas, Pascaline. 2012. "Short-Run Subsidies and Long-Run Adoption of New Health Products: Evidence from a Field Experiment." National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 16298.
24. Dupas, Pascaline, Sarah Green, Anthony Keats, and Jonathan Robinson. 2012. "Challenges In Banking the Rural Poor: Evidence From Kenya's Western Province." National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 17851.
25. Dupas, Pascaline, and Jonathan Robinson. 2013a. "Savings Constraints and Microenterprise Development: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Kenya." American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 5 (1): 163-92.
26. Dupas, Pascaline, and Jonathan Robinson. 2013b. "Why Don't the Poor Save More? Evidence from Health Savings Experiments: Dataset." American Economic Review. http://dx.doi.org/10.1257/ aer.103.4.1138.
27. Fafchamps, Marcel, David McKenzie, Simon Quinn, and Christopher Woodruff. 2011. "When is Capital Enough to Get Female Microenterprises Growing? Evidence from a Randomized Experiment in Ghana." National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 17207.
28. Gugerty, Mary Kay. 2007. "You Can't Save Alone: Commitment in Rotating Savings and Credit Associations in Kenya." Economic Development and Cultural Change 55 (2): 251-82.
29. Jakiela, Pamela, and Owen Ozier. 2011. "Does Africa Need a Rotten Kin Theorem? Experimental Evidence from Village Economies." Unpublished.
30. Jones, Gareth, Richard W. Steketee, Robert E. Black, Zulfiqar A. Bhutta, Saul S. Morris, and the Bellagio Child Survival Study Group. 2003. "How Many Child Deaths Can We Prevent This Year?" Lancet 362 (9377): 65-71.
31. Karlan, Dean, Margaret McConnell, Sendhil Mullainathan, and Jonathan Zinman. 2011. "Getting to the Top of the Mind: How Reminders Increase Saving." Unpublished.
32. Kast, Felipe, Stefan Meier, and Dina Pomeranz. 2011. "Under-Savers Anonymous: Evidence on Self- Help Groups and Peer Pressure as a Savings Commitment Device." Unpublished.
33. Koszegi, Botond, and Matthew Rabin. 2006. "A Model of Reference-Dependent Preferences." Quarterly Journal of Economics 121 (4): 1133-65.
34. Ligon, Ethan, Jonathan P. Thomas, and Tim Worrall. 2000. "Mutual Insurance, Individual Savings, and Limited Commitment." Review of Economic Dynamics 3 (2): 216-46.
35. Platteau, Jean-Philippe. 2000. Institutions, Social Norms, and Economic Development. Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers.
36. Rutherford, Stuart. 2000. The Poor and Their Money. New York: Oxford University Press.
37. Schaner, Simone G. 2011. "Intrahousehold Preference Heterogeneity, Commitment, and Strategic Savings: Theory and Evidence from Kenya." Unpublished.
38. Shipton, Parker. 1990. "How Gambians Save and What Their Strategies Imply for International Aid." World Bank, Policy Research Working Paper Series 395.
39. Tarozzi, Alessandro, Aprajit Mahajan, Brian Blackburn, Dan Kopf, Lakshmi Krishnan, and Joanne Yoong. 2013. "Micro-Loans, Insecticide-Treated Bednets and Malaria: Evidence from a Randomized Controlled Trial in Orissa (India)." Duke University, Department of Economics, Working Paper 11-13.
40. Thaler, Richard H. 1990. "Anomalies: Saving, Fungibility, and Mental Accounts." Journal of Economic Perspectives 4 (1): 193-205.
41. Thaler, Richard H. 1999. "Mental Accounting Matters." Journal of Behavioral Decision Making 12 (3): 183-206.
42. Thaler, Richard H., and Schlomo Benartzi. 2004. "Save More Tomorrow: Using Behavioral Economics to Increase Employee Saving." Journal of Political Economy 112 (1): S164-87.
43. Thaler, Richard H., and Cass R. Sunstein. 2008. Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness. New Haven: Yale University Press.