Author(s)
Sule Alan, Seda Ertac

We report results from the impact evaluation of a randomized educational intervention targeted at elementary school children. The program uses case studies, stories and classroom activities to improve the ability to imagine future selves, and emphasizes forward-looking behavior. We find that treated students make more patient intertemporal choices in incentivized experimental tasks. The effect is stronger for students who are identified as present-biased in the baseline. Furthermore, using official administrative records, we find that treated children are significantly less likely to receive a low "behavioral grade". These results are persistent one year after the intervention, replicate well in a different sample, and are robust across different experimental elicitation methods.

JEL Codes
C93: Field Experiments
D91: Intertemporal Consumer Choice; Life Cycle Models and Saving
I28: Education: Government Policy
Keywords
intertemporal choice
randomized field experiments
non-cognitive skills