Here is the article itself: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/amani/mani_science_976.full.pdf http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/

Here is the article itself: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/amani/mani_science_976.full.pdf http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/amani/mani... Note that the effects of financial concerns measured in this paper are large and instantaneous. There is nothing here about persistent, long-term effects. A couple of observations: - The proposed mechanism is that thinking about financial concerns ties up mental resources that would otherwise be available to solve tests. But it seems to follow that the poor do have their full mental resources available when dealing with those financial concerns themselves, so it does not seem to work as an explanation for poor decisions concerning finances. - The sugar-cane farmers end up poor towards the end of the harvest cycle because they spend too much of their money soon after they have been paid (as the paper says, they "find it hard to smooth their consumption"). In other words, their eventual poverty is caused by poor decisions made when they are rich, not when they are poor.