Applied Micro Seminar : Every Tuesday
Time: 12:15 pm – 13:30 pm
Date: 21th of March
Room : 3001

Maulik JAGNANI (UC Denver) – “Financial concerns and sleeplessness“

Abstract :

Do people worried about their personal finances experience lower quality sleep? Using aregression discontinuity research design, we find that eligible household heads surveyed justafter the disbursement of an unconditional cash transfer in Indonesia report a 0.3 standarddeviation improvement in sleep quality as compared to those surveyed just before the cashdisbursement. The cash transfer appears to have alleviated financial concerns amongst householdheads, who are responsible for satisfying the daily necessities of the household. Immediatelyafter disbursement, eligible households report an increase in savings, and eligible householdheads report feeling less worried, frustrated, and tired. Consistent with evidence from sleepmedicine, eligible household heads displayed improved performance on memory and attentiontests but not on reasoning or problem-solving tests. These patterns of results are not observed forhousehold heads ineligible for the cash transfer, which suggests that our results are not driven byseasonal confounders or aggregate shocks. These results are also not observed for other membersof eligible households, who are not responsible for satisfying the households’ financial needs.We also argue that nutrition, time in bed, and labor supply cannot explain our results.

Joint work with : Claire Duquennois

Organizers:
Benoît SCHMUTZ (Pôle d’économie du CREST)
Roland RATHELOT (Pôle d’économie du CREST)
Sponsors:
CREST