Aggressive behavior against out-group members often rises during periods of economic hardship and health pandemics. Here, we test the widespread concern that the COVID-19 crisis may fuel hostility against people from other nations or ethnic minorities. Using a controlled money-burning task, we...

We study how human capital and economic conditions causally affect the choice of religious denomination. We utilize a longitudinal dataset monitoring the religious history of more than 5,000 Kenyans over twenty years, in tandem with a randomized experiment (deworming) that has exogenously...

We study how human capital and economic conditions causally affect the choice of religious denomination. We utilize a longitudinal dataset monitoring the religious history of more than 5,000 Kenyans over twenty years, in tandem with a randomized experiment (deworming) that has exogenously...

We test whether an environment of poverty affects time preferences through purely psychological channels. We measured discount rates among farmers in Uganda who made decisions about when to enjoy entertainment instead of working. To circumvent the role of economic constraints, we experimentally...

This paper studies gender heterogeneity in preferences. We used experimental methods to elicit the subjective discount rate and attitude toward risk in Indian villages. Results show that women made more patient choices than men and that their discount rate is related to number of children. No...

In the paper we propose a new channel through which education may promote economic growth: education makes people more patient, and more patient people are more likely to save, invest, or send children to school. The paper first summarizes the results of field studies which we conducted in two...