Poverty and economic decision making: a review of scarcity theory

• Published in: Theory and decision Vol. 92; no. 1; pp. 5 - 37
• Main Authors: de Bruijn, Ernst-Jan, Antonides, Gerrit
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer US 01.02.2022; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Behavioral/Experimental Economics; Decision making; Decision theory; Discounting; Economic Theory/Quantitative Economics/Mathematical Methods; Economics; Economics and Finance; Finance; Game Theory; Insurance; Management; Methodological problems; Operations Research/Decision Theory; Poverty; Risk; Scarcity; Social and Behav. Sciences; Statistics for Business; Literature review; Cognition; Poverty; Scarcity theory; Economic decision making; Attention

Poverty is associated with a wide range of counterproductive economic behaviors. Scarcity theory proposes that poverty itself induces a scarcity mindset, which subsequently forces the poor into suboptimal decisions and behaviors. The purpose of our work is to provide an integrated, up-to-date, criti...