Recent literature promotes commitment products as a new remedy for overcoming self-control problems and savings constraints. Committing to a welfare-improving contract requires knowledge about one's preferences, including biases and inconsistencies. If agents are imperfectly informed about their...

Empirical evidence suggests that there is a high demand for informal savings mechanisms even though these often feature negative returns - such as deposit collectors, ROSCAs, microloans, and informal borrowing. This paper argues that individuals may face even higher negative returns to saving at...

Empirical evidence suggests that there is a high demand for informal savings mechanisms even though these often feature negative returns - such as deposit collectors, ROSCAs, microloans, and informal borrowing. This paper argues that individuals may face even higher negative returns to saving at...

This study analyzes the effects of differences in survey frequency and medium on microenterprise survey data. A sample of enterprises were randomly assigned to monthly in-person, weekly in-person, or weekly phone surveys for a 12-week panel. The results show few differences across the groups in...

Les économistes s’intéressent à de nombreux aspects de la vie des enfants. Les chercheurs dans le domaine des études de l’enfance reprochent souvent aux économistes de ne pas considérer les enfants comme des acteurs à part entière, malgré le fait qu’ils agissent, dans la limite de...

An abolitionist approach to children's work bans all work; a regulatory approach bans harmful work and regulates other work. I argue for a regulatory approach, using the ‘least restrictive’ alternative test applied in law. I contend, however, that definitions of harmful work must be...

Poor people often do not make investments, even when returns are high. One possible explanation is that they have low aspirations and form mental models which ignore some options for investment. This paper reports on findings of an innovative experiment to test this in rural Ethiopia. Firstly,...

Poor people often do not make investments, even when returns are high.  One possible explanation is that they have low aspirations and form mental models which ignore some options for investment.  This paper reports on findings of an innovative experiment to test this in rural Ethiopia. ...

Poor people often do not make investments, even when returns are high. One possible explanation is that they have low aspirations and form mental models of their future opportunities which ignore some options for investment. This paper reports on a field experiment to test this hypothesis in...