When You Can’t Afford to Wait for a Job: The Role of Time Discounting for Own-Account Workers in Developing Countries
研究了发展中国家劳动者因时间贴现率高而选择低薪自雇而非等待高薪工作的现象，发现巴西城市自雇者中至少65%的时间贴现率高于正规信贷市场利率，且与基本生活匮乏正相关。
Frictional labor markets impose a fundamental trade-off: individuals may work on their own at any time but can take a potentially better-paid wage job only after spending some time looking for it, suggesting that intertemporal considerations affect how people choose their occupation. We formalize this intuition under the job-search framework and show that a sufficiently high subjective discount rate can justify the choice for own-account work even when it pays less than wage work. With this simple model, we estimate the lowest discount rate that is consistent with the occupational choice of urban own-account workers in Brazil. We find that at least 65% of these workers appear to discount the future at rates superior to those available in the formal credit market, which suggests constrained occupational choice. Finally, we show that our estimated lower bound of the time preference is positively associated with food, clothing, and housing deprivation.