{"id":5088,"date":"2024-09-11T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-09-11T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/biwiki\/?p=5088"},"modified":"2024-09-10T09:48:23","modified_gmt":"2024-09-10T16:48:23","slug":"webinar-series-behavior-change-for-good-center-for-health-incentives-and-behavioral-economics-sep-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/biwiki\/2024\/09\/11\/webinar-series-behavior-change-for-good-center-for-health-incentives-and-behavioral-economics-sep-19\/","title":{"rendered":"Webinar Series: Behavior Change for Good & Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics (Sep 19)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The University of Pennsylvania’s Behavior Change for Good (BCFG) center is co-hosting the kickoff keynote of a new Zoom-based Center for Health Incentives & Behavioral Economics<\/a> (CHIBE) Research Seminar Series on behavioral science and health. Learn about the full series<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sept 19: Supreet Kaur<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

BCFG Co-Director Katy Milkman will host the first seminar where Team Scientist Supreet Kaur will present her research on Thursday, 9\/19 at 9am PT.\u00a0 Register<\/a> to attend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Planning Fallacy and Savings Behavior: A Field\u00a0Experiment\u00a0on Seasonal Hunger\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Low income individuals often experience recurrent, predictable consumption cycles: spending increases after income arrives, followed by declines in spending and calorie intake in the days leading up to the next paycheck or income receipt. We empirically investigate the role of the \u201cplanning fallacy\u201d in such cycles among Zambian farmers, who derive their income from one annual harvest and then spend it down over the course of the year. We document that individuals underestimate upcoming spending by 50%, creating scope for under-saving. To debias beliefs, we randomize an intervention that prompts individuals to think through their future expenses associatively in categories—without providing any external information or guidance. Treated individuals increase \u201cremembered’\u201d expenses by 42%; as predicted by the memory literature, effects are concentrated among small, irregular, and stochastic items. Immediate spending drops and, two months after the intervention, treated households hold 15% higher savings. They subsequently enter the \u201chungry season\u201d—the final months of the year when consumption typically declines sharply—with one additional month of savings, leading to a flatter spending profile over the year. Households use the increased savings to self-finance additional farm investment, resulting in a 9% increase in the next year’s crop revenue. We replicate the intervention’s impact on beliefs among low-income Americans, suggesting the applicability of the planning fallacy to savings behavior across settings and populations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Supreet Kaur, PhD<\/strong>, is an associate\u00a0professor (with tenure) in the Department of Economics at UC Berkeley. She is a development economist, with overlap in her work with behavioral and labor economics. The first strand of her research focuses on the functioning of labor markets in poor countries. Dr. Kaur\u2019s work documents frictions in labor markets, studies the causes of unemployment, and examines the impact of inequality on labor productivity. The second strand of her research explores how\u00a0psychological forces\u2013such as the limits of human cognition and\u00a0social norms\u2013can affect individual behavior and market equilibria. By applying insights from psychology into economics, Dr. Kaur\u2019s goal is to deepen our understanding of the causes and consequences of poverty.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UPenn’s Behavior Change for Good (BCFG) is co-hosting the kickoff keynote of a new Center for Health Incentives & Behavioral Economics seminar series on behavioral science and health […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28042,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"templates\/template-full-width.php","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-events","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/biwiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/biwiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/biwiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/biwiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28042"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/biwiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5088"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/biwiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5088\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5090,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/biwiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5088\/revisions\/5090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/biwiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/biwiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/biwiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}