Intertemporal Choices of Children and Adults from Poor Roma Communities: A Case Study from Slovakia

Abstract

Poverty may have negative consequences on people's economic behavior and literature has documented close links between time discounting and poverty. This paper investigates intertemporal choices made by children and adults from segregated Roma communities in Slovakia. The study finds that fewer children than adults prefer smaller-sooner to larger-later amounts (referred to as "quasi-impatience"). The study further examines the decisions of individuals assigned into random teams by cohorts (children, parents, grandparents), and finds no statistically significant differences in the proportions of quasi-impatient teams across the cohorts. The results also suggest that children's decisions are correlated with those of their parents.