Patience Decreases With Age for the Poor but Not for the Rich: An International Comparison

Abstract

We introduce the Preference for Earlier versus Later Income (PELI) scale, measuring
patience for over 50,000 individuals from 65 countries. We focus on the relationship between age and income on patience, two variables that have been widely studied in isolation. We find that, within countries, individuals in the richest income quintile are equally patient at any age while individuals in the poorest quintile are less patient the older they are. The relationships in the other
quintiles are distributed in an orderly manner between these extremes. We derive a
national patience index that correlates with characteristics linked to economic
development, with cultural differences associated with patience, and with alternative
more complex measures of patience. We recommend adopting PELI in international
surveys.

Keywords: Time Discounting, Aging, Income, World

JEL Classification: D15, D50, D90