TY - JOUR
T1 - Commitment or concealment? Impacts and use of a portable saving device: Evidence from a field experiment in urban India
AU - Steinert, Janina Isabel
AU - Satish, Rucha Vasumati
AU - Stips, Felix
AU - Vollmer, Sebastian
PY - 2022/1
Y1 - 2022/1
N2 - To quantify the impact of a novel “soft” commitment intervention, we randomly allocate 1525 Indian slum dwellers to receive a zip purse and a lockbox (treatment) or a lockbox only (control). After six months, we document a 19 percent increase in total savings in the treatment arm. The effect is sustained in a sub-sample of participants we re-interview during the COVID-19 pandemic, twenty months after initial distribution of the devices. While temptation spending was not reduced, additional analyses suggest that the zip purse served as a hiding rather than a self-control device. Our results highlight the importance of considering the role of financial transfers to other household members in future saving promotion programs.
AB - To quantify the impact of a novel “soft” commitment intervention, we randomly allocate 1525 Indian slum dwellers to receive a zip purse and a lockbox (treatment) or a lockbox only (control). After six months, we document a 19 percent increase in total savings in the treatment arm. The effect is sustained in a sub-sample of participants we re-interview during the COVID-19 pandemic, twenty months after initial distribution of the devices. While temptation spending was not reduced, additional analyses suggest that the zip purse served as a hiding rather than a self-control device. Our results highlight the importance of considering the role of financial transfers to other household members in future saving promotion programs.
KW - Saving
KW - Temptation spending
KW - Commitment device
KW - RCT
KW - India
KW - COVID-19
UR - https://authors.elsevier.com/c/1eEBAc24axqku
UR - https://twitter.com/jisteinert/status/1470088572371886088
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85120958951&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/cf0de998-f242-3ede-87c5-0247adc83f43/
U2 - 10.1016/j.jebo.2021.11.025
DO - 10.1016/j.jebo.2021.11.025
M3 - Article
SN - 0167-2681
VL - 193
SP - 367
EP - 398
JO - Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization
JF - Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization
ER -