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It's not just about the future: The present payoffs to behaviour vary in degree and kind between the rich and the poor

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2017

Rebecca Sear
Affiliation:
Department of Population Health, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London WC1E 7HT, UK. [email protected]://www.lshtm.ac.uk/aboutus/people/sear.rebecca
Susan B. Schaffnit
Affiliation:
Department of Population Health, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London WC1E 7HT, UK. [email protected]://www.lshtm.ac.uk/aboutus/people/sear.rebecca Department of Anthropology, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106. [email protected]://susieschaffnit.wixsite.com/schaffnit

Abstract

Pepper & Nettle offer a nuanced and humane view on poverty that should be required reading for policy makers, particularly those interested in “behaviour change” policy. We suggest, however, that the emphasis on “future-discounting” in this paper downplays the importance of differences in the payoffs to behaviours in the present and how these payoffs may be realised in different currencies.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

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