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  1. Home
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  3. American Economic Review
  4. April 2019
  5. Alcohol and Self-Control: A Field Experiment in India

Alcohol and Self-Control: A Field Experiment in India

  • Frank Schilbach
American Economic Review
vol. 109, no. 4, April 2019
(pp. 1290-1322)
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Abstract

This paper studies alcohol consumption among low-income workers in India. In a 3-week field experiment, the majority of 229 cycle-rickshaw drivers were willing to forgo substantial monetary payments in order to set incentives for themselves to remain sober, thus exhibiting demand for commitment to sobriety. Randomly receiving sobriety incentives significantly reduced daytime drinking while leaving overall drinking unchanged. I find no evidence of higher daytime sobriety significantly changing labor supply, productivity, or earnings. In contrast, increasing sobriety raised savings by 50 percent, an effect that does not appear to be solely explained by changes in income net of alcohol expenditures.

Citation

Schilbach, Frank. 2019. "Alcohol and Self-Control: A Field Experiment in India." American Economic Review, 109 (4): 1290-1322. DOI: 10.1257/aer.20170458

Additional Materials

JEL Classification

  • C93 Field Experiments
  • D14 Household Saving; Personal Finance
  • I12 Health Behavior
  • J22 Time Allocation and Labor Supply
  • J24 Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
  • J31 Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
  • O12 Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development