We have combined farm household panel data, weather data and discount rates, as measured by a hypothetical survey question, to estimate the impact of income on discounting. This paper has found that income variation driven by anomalies in rainfall during the main growing season is a strong predictor of farmers' subjective discount rates. Farmers prefer a smaller immediate reward to a larger deferred one when affected by negative income shocks, while they display lower discount rates when the income shocks are positive. We have also found that higher discount rates are negatively correlated with profitable agricultural investments. (C) 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
1.Univ Geneva, Geneva Sch Econ & Management, Blvd Pont Arve 40, CH-1211 Geneva, Switzerland 2.Univ Calif Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720 USA 3.Environm & Climate Res Ctr, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia 4.Univ Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden
Recommended Citation:
Di Falco, Salvatore,Berck, Peter,Bezabih, Mintewab,et al. Rain and impatience: Evidence from rural Ethiopia[J]. JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC BEHAVIOR & ORGANIZATION,2019-01-01,160:40-51