Chronic and late poverty as the main concerns in a twofold survey on intertemporal poverty preferences

The increasing attention gained by the intertemporal aspect of poverty has led to
the flourishing of measurement tools which are informed by conflicting views on deprivation dynamics. We test individual preferences for alternative intertemporal poverty patterns using primary data from a sample of 1,083 undergraduate students and a heterogeneous sample of 310 adults in the Dominican Republic. For both samples the strongest concerns are chronic (rather than intermittent) and poverty in the second rather than in the first part of one’s life. Preferences are significantly affected by a duration-based between-subject randomly assigned treatment. Individual characteristics such as age and standard of living are significant predictors of respondents’ views.