Abstract

This thesis consists of three essays in Development Economics. The first two essays discuss the formation and evolution of time preference among pre-school children and adults respectively. Using a large-scale individual panel data in Indonesia, the first essay shows that the expansion of commercial bank in rural areas makes people less patient. Increasing access to deposit service can explain the negative impact. The second essay finds that children are more patient if their caregivers participated in a randomized controlled parenting program in rural China. The program also has a significant and lasting impact on parenting style, which is suggested to be the main mechanism of intervention.

The last essay investigates the causal impact of delayed enrolment on high school enrolment in a developing country setting. Contrary to evidence in developed countries, we find that school entry age has a negative impact on education in China.