Does Poverty Lower Productivity?

贫困会降低生产力吗？

• 批准号: 1658931
• 负责人: Frank Schilbach
• 金额: $ 36.25万
• 依托单位: National Bureau of Economic Research Inc
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2017-03-01 至 2021-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1658931&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Does; Poverty; Lower; Productivity

Development economists have long been interested in poverty traps: feedback loops that make it difficult for individuals to escape poverty. New work at the intersection of psychology and economics suggests a focus on psychological micro-foundations. In particular, worries about financial problems may capture individuals? attentional and therefore decreases their available cognitive resources; this in turn can create behaviors that further worsen poverty. While previous work has explored these ideas, there is scant evidence of these channels impacting real economic outcomes. This project seeks to provide the first piece of evidence on the impact of poverty on economic field behavior: worker productivity. Results from this study would provide the first evidence on how poverty, operating through cognitive function, could directly reinforce itself. This would be a first step toward a more thorough integration of psychology within development economics, with important implications for public policy and the wellbeing of the poor. For instance, if the hypothesized effects are indeed at play, then impediments to productivity would occur precisely at times when individuals face the greatest financial trouble and therefore face the greatest need for cash. This implies that reducing volatility or mitigating financial vulnerability could have direct productivity benefits. In addition, transfer or public workfare programs could have productivity benefits that are unmeasured to-date. Finally, the hypothesized feedback effects of poverty would be evidence of an underlying determinant of persistent inequality and reduced social mobility.This study uses a three-week field experiment to examine whether income directly affects labor productivity by changing cognitive function. The experiment directly and cleanly tests whether poverty affects productivity by experimentally inducing variation in financial constraints?via large lump-sum wage payments. To provide evidence on whether the underlying mechanism that drives this relationship is cognitive load, the design makes use of two complementary approaches: (i) It tests whether the estimated impacts of poverty on productivity are larger for a manufacturing task that relies more heavily on cognitive resources. (ii) It uses a salience intervention that directs worker attention to financial constraints, and tests whether the negative effects of this intervention on productivity are dampened when financial constraints are (experimentally) eased. Productivity, labor earnings, consumption patterns, and cognitive function will all be measured.

发展经济学家长期以来一直对贫困陷阱感兴趣：反馈循环使个人难以摆脱贫困。心理与经济学交集的新作品表明，专注于心理微观基础。特别是，对财务问题的担忧可能会抓住个人吗？注意，因此减少了他们的可用认知资源；反过来，这会产生进一步加剧贫困的行为。尽管以前的工作探讨了这些想法，但有很少的证据表明这些渠道影响了实际的经济成果。该项目旨在提供有关贫困对经济领域行为的影响的第一条证据：工人的生产力。这项研究的结果将提供第一个证据，表明通过认知功能运作的贫困如何直接加强自己。这将是迈向发展经济学中心理学更彻底整合的第一步，对公共政策和穷人的福祉具有重要意义。例如，如果假设的影响确实在起作用，那么生产力的障碍将在个人面临最大的财务问题并因此面临最大现金需求时，精确地发生生产力。这意味着降低波动或减轻财务脆弱性可能具有直接的生产力益处。此外，转移或公共工作选择计划可能会获得未来的生产力福利。最后，假设的贫困反馈效应将证明持续不平等和社会流动性降低的基本决定因素的证据。这项研究使用三周的现场实验来检查收入是否通过改变认知功能直接影响劳动力生产率。该实验直接，干净地测试贫困是否通过实验诱导财务限制的差异来影响生产力？通过大型总计工资支付。为了提供证据证明驱动这种关系的基本机制是否是认知负荷，设计利用了两种互补方法：（i）测试贫困对生产力的估计影响是否更大，对于更严重地依赖认知的制造任务资源。 （ii）它使用显着性干预措施，该干预指导工人注意财务限制，并测试当经济限制（实验性地）放松时，这种干预对生产力的负面影响是否会受到抑制。生产率，劳动收入，消费模式和认知功能都将均可衡量。