Do poor parents respond inefficiently to future returns on investments, even when they would have the financial means to invest optimally? Combining multiple experiments, we document that when parents of high-school students in Brazil are offered the opportunity to invest in an educational...

Poverty focuses attention on present needs. Does that mean that poor parents respond inefficiently to future returns on investments in their children's human capital – even when they would have the financial means to invest optimally? We study this question in the context of an educational...

Poverty focuses attention on present needs. Does that mean that poor parents respond inefficiently to future returns on investments in their children's human capital - even when they would have the financial means to invest optimally? We study this question in the context of an educational...

Poverty focuses attention on present needs. Does that mean that poor parents respond inefficiently to future returns on investments in their children's human capital - even when they would have the financial means to invest optimally? We study this question in the context of an educational...

This paper uses a lab-in-the-field experiment in Malawi to document two new facts about how parents share resources with their children over time. First, for almost a third of study participants, the further in the future consumption is, the more generous are parents' plans to share it with...