Stress and Temporal Discounting: Do Domains Matter?

Johannes Haushofer, Chaning Jang, John Lynham, and Justin Abraham

This is a public repository containing replication files for "Stress and Temporal Discounting: Do Domains Matter?".

Replication

Releases typically contain the data, source code, survey instruments, and a summary of the research design. Simply run stress_master.do to reproduce tables and figures presented in the manuscript and appendix. These will be output in latex/. Experimental data was collected using Z-Tree. Results published in the manuscript were analyzed using Stata 13.1.

Data

• The directories *_raw/ contain each experiment's raw data. These consist of .xls files produced by Z-Tree and .dta files containing subject demographics. We strip subject data of personally identifiable information to protect participant privacy.
• *_Cleaned.dta are intermediate datasets to be merged into the analytic dataset.
• Stress_FinalWide.dta is the final subject-level dataset containing data from all three lab experiments. This dataset is used to produce all tables in the manuscript.
• Stress_FinalTime.dta is the final subject-by-question level dataset made by reshaping Stress_FinalWide.dta with temporal discounting variables.
• Stress_FinalNAS.dta is the final subject-by-question level dataset made by reshaping Stress_FinalWide.dta with negative affect variables.
• stress_data_id is an encrypted volume containing data before de-identification. Available only to authorized users.

Source Code

• ado/: Contains canned scripts used in data manipulation, analysis, and publishing.
• do/: Contains .do files used to replicate results in the paper.
  • do/stress_master.do: This script is the master .do file that reproduces all components of the data analysis. Users need only execute this file to replicate results. Requires Stata 13.1 or higher.
  • do/stress_append.do: This script takes *_Cleaned.dta and outputs Stress_FinalWide.dta.
  • do/stress_summary.do: This script produces summary statistics and conducts the randomization check.
  • do/stress_analysis.do: This script estimates treatment effects: the paper's highlighted results.
  • do/*_clean.do: These files prepare raw data from each experiment and produces intermediate datasets *_Cleaned.dta.
  • custom_tables/: Directory for .do files that render tables from Stata into Latex.
• ztt/: Contains the .ztt files that implement the experimental protocol on Z-Tree.

Contact

The corresponding author is Johannes Haushofer.