TY - BOOK AU - Akesaka,Mika AU - Eibich,Peter AU - Hanaoka,Chie AU - Shigeoka,Hitoshi ED - National Bureau of Economic Research. TI - Temporal Instability of Risk Preference among the Poor: Evidence from Payday Cycles T2 - NBER working paper series PY - 2021/// CY - Cambridge, Mass. PB - National Bureau of Economic Research N1 - May 2021; Hardcopy version available to institutional subscribers N2 - The poor live paycheck to paycheck and are repeatedly exposed to strong cyclical income fluctuations. We investigate whether such income fluctuations affect risk preference among the poor. If risk preference temporarily changes around payday, optimal decisions made before payday may no longer be optimal afterward, which could reinforce poverty. By exploiting Social Security payday cycles in the US, we find that risk preference among the poor relying heavily on Social Security changes around payday. Rather than cognitive decline before payday, the deterioration of mental health and relative deprivation may play a role. We find similar evidence among the Japanese elderly UR - https://www.nber.org/papers/w28784 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.3386/w28784 ER -