Modernisation and Time Preferences in Tanzania: Evidence from a Large-Scale Elicitation Exercise
基于坦桑尼亚大规模实验数据，发现城市地区比农村地区更缺乏耐心，且这种差异不能完全由社会经济因素解释，可能与现代化进程有关。
Abstract Assumptions about individual time preferences are important for explanations of poverty and development. Data from a large-scale elicitation exercise in Tanzania show significantly higher levels of impatience in urban areas than in rural areas. This result remains robust to adding controls for socio-economic differences between rural and urban areas, which possibly correlate with time preferences. We attribute this to differences in ‘modernisation’ between urban and rural areas, with modernisation leading to increased impatience. This is corroborated by the observed positive correlation between impatience and education; the latter being an important vehicle of modernisation for traditional societies in Tanzania.