Replication Data for: Gambling, Saving, and Lumpy Liquidity Needs

Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s) Sylvan Herskowitz, International Food Policy Research Institute

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Project Citation:

Herskowitz, Sylvan. Replication Data for: Gambling, Saving, and Lumpy Liquidity Needs. Nashville, TN: American Economic Association [publisher], 2020. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2020-12-16. https://doi.org/10.3886/E115162V1

Project Description

Summary:

I present evidence that unmet liquidity needs for indivisible, “lumpy”, expenditures increase demand for betting as a second-best method of liquidity generation in the presence of financial constraints. With a sample of 1,708 sports bettors in Kampala, Uganda, I show that participants’ targeted payouts are linked to anticipated expenditures while winnings disproportionately increase lumpy expenditures. I show that a randomized savings treatment decreases demand for betting. And I use two lab-in-the-field experiments to show that unmet liquidity needs and saving ability are important mechanisms. These results cannot be explained by betting as a purely normal good.

Funding Sources: CEGA EASST Collaborative; NSF Doctoral Dissertation Research in DRMS (1530852); UC Irvine - Institute for Money, Technology, and Financial Inclusion (2015-3254); Rocca Center at UC Berkeley; AAEA - Tweeten

Scope of Project

Subject Terms: Gambling; Betting; Saving; Liquidity Needs; Temptation Goods

JEL Classification:
      D14 Household Saving; Personal Finance
      D81 Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
      L83 Sports; Gambling; Restaurants; Recreation; Tourism
      O12 Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
      O16 Economic Development: Financial Markets; Saving and Capital Investment; Corporate Finance and Governance

Geographic Coverage: Uganda

Time Period(s): 9/2015 – 7/2016

Collection Date(s): 9/2015 – 7/2016

Data Type(s): experimental data; observational data

Collection Notes: The project had three phases of data collection. The first two phases were sets of interviews with study participants creating nine week panels of reported betting, earning, and consumption. Each group was approximately 500 respondents. Data collection for the first group was conducted between October and December 2015. Data collection for the second group took place from April to June 2016. A final group of 751 participants were included with a single visit interview in July 2016.

Methodology

Response Rate: Data collection for panel study participants was designed to have five in-person interviews. 95% of those who participated in the first two (and who are included in the analysis), were successfully reached for all five visits and 99.5% were reached for at least four.

Sampling:

The study targeted men, 18-40 years old, self-employed in small micro-enterprises or

services, with weekly incomes below 50 USD. Each phase of data collection began with

a listing exercise in selected parishes around Kampala. Listing was intended to establish

broader betting incidence in this population and to identify suitable study participants who

constituted a range of “typical” bettors, and not just those who were most extreme. Respondents were identified at their place of work and asked a short set of screening questions to determine whether they met the targeting criteria and to ask if they were interested in participating in the study. A total of 5,522 people were included in this listing. 60% of these respondents reported to bet regularly. From this group, randomly chosen participants were invited to participate in the full study.

Data Source: Data was collected by the researcher and the data collection field teams.

Collection Mode(s): computer-assisted personal interview (CAPI); computer-assisted telephone interview (CATI); face-to-face interview

Unit(s) of Observation: Individual

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Published Versions

V1 [2020-12-16]

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