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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons™
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Articles 1 - 4 of 4
Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Referrals: Peer Screening And Enforcement In A Consumer Credit Field Experiment, Gharad Bryan, Dean Karlan, Jonathan Zinman
Referrals: Peer Screening And Enforcement In A Consumer Credit Field Experiment, Gharad Bryan, Dean Karlan, Jonathan Zinman
Dartmouth Scholarship
Empirical evidence on peer intermediation lags behind both theory and practice in which lenders use peers to mitigate adverse selection and moral hazard. Using a referral incentive under individual liability, we develop a two-stage field experiment that permits separate identification of peer screening and enforcement. Our key contribution is to allow for borrower heterogeneity in both ex ante repayment type and ex post susceptibility to social pressure. Our method allows identification of selection on repayment likelihood, selection on susceptibility to social pressure, and loan enforcement. Implementing our method in South Africa we find no evidence of screening but large enforcement …
Do Opposites Detract? Intrahousehold Preference Heterogeneity And Inefficient Strategic Savings, Simone Schaner
Do Opposites Detract? Intrahousehold Preference Heterogeneity And Inefficient Strategic Savings, Simone Schaner
Dartmouth Scholarship
This paper uses a field experiment to test whether intrahousehold heterogeneity in discount factors leads to inefficient strategic savings behavior. I gave married couples in rural Kenya the opportunity to open both joint and individual bank accounts at randomly assigned interest rates. I also directly elicited discount factors for all individuals in the experiment. Couples who are well matched on discount factors are less likely to use costly individual accounts and respond robustly to relative rates of return between accounts, while their poorly matched peers do not. Consequently, poorly matched couples forgo significantly more interest earnings on their savings. (JEL …
Systematic Bias And Nontransparency In Us Social Security Administration Forecasts, Konstantin Kashin, Gary King, Samir Soneji
Systematic Bias And Nontransparency In Us Social Security Administration Forecasts, Konstantin Kashin, Gary King, Samir Soneji
Dartmouth Scholarship
We offer an evaluation of the Social Security Administration demographic and financial forecasts used to assess the long-term solvency of the Social Security Trust Funds. This same forecasting methodology is also used in evaluating policy proposals put forward by Congress to modify the Social Security program. Ours is the first evaluation to compare the SSA forecasts with observed truth; for example, we compare forecasts made in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s with outcomes that are now available. We find that Social Security Administration forecasting errors—as evaluated by how accurate the forecasts turned out to be—were approximately unbiased until 2000 and …
Is Student Loan Debt Discouraging Homeownership Among Young Adults?, Jason N. Houle, Lawrence Berger
Is Student Loan Debt Discouraging Homeownership Among Young Adults?, Jason N. Houle, Lawrence Berger
Dartmouth Scholarship
Amid concern that rising student loan debt has social and economic consequences for young adults, many suggest that student loan debt is leading young adults to forgo home buying. However, there is little empirical evidence on this topic. In this study, we use data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 to estimate associations of student loan debt with homeownership, mortgage amount, and home equity. We use a variety of methodological techniques and test several model specifications. While we find a negative association between debt and homeownership in some models, the association is substantively modest in size and is …