The economic consequences of increasing sleep among the urban poor
Open accessAbstract
The urban poor in developing countries face challenging living environments, which may interfere with good sleep. Using actigraphy to measure sleep objectively, we find that low-income adults in Chennai, India, sleep only 5.5 hours a night on average despite spending 8 hours in bed. Their sleep is highly interrupted, with sleep efficiency-sleep per time in bed-comparable to those with disorders such as sleep apnea or insomnia. A randomized three-week treatment providing information, encouragement, and improvements to home sleep environments increased sleep duration by 27 minutes a night by inducing more time in bed. Contrary to expert predictions and a large body of sleep research, increased nighttime sleep had no detectable effects on cognition, productivity, decision making, or well being, and led to small decreases in labor supply. In contrast, short afternoon naps at the workplace improved an overall index of outcomes by 0.12 standard deviations, with significant increases in productivity, psychological well-being, and cognition, but a decrease in work time.
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The negative effect of the postprandial dip on test performance might explain why Bessone et al. (2021) find that daytime naps have much larger positive effects on cognition and productivity compared to increased nighttime sleep.
“Our identification of the negative effect of the postprandial dip on test performance might also explain why Bessone et al. (2021) find that daytime naps have much larger positive effects on cognition and productivity compared to increased nighttime sleep.”
From Food Coma is Real: The Effect of Digestive Fatigue on Adolescents' Cognitive Performance (2024) · cites this paper as Bessone et al., 2021
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Poverty and economic decision making: a review of scarcity theory
de Bruijn, E.-J., & Antonides, G. (2022) · Theory and Decision · doi:10.1007/s11238-021-09802-7 · Cited by 277 · see citing works
The Economic Consequences of Increasing Sleep Among the Urban Poor
Bessone, P., Rao, G., Schilbach, F., Schofield, H., & Toma, M. (2020) · doi:10.3386/w26746 · Cited by 26 · see citing works
Self-citationFood Coma is Real: The Effect of Digestive Fatigue on Adolescents' Cognitive Performance
Hervé, J., Mani, S., Behrman, J. R., Laxminarayan, R., & Nandi, A. (2024) · Social Science Research Network · doi:10.2139/ssrn.4788223
- Authors
- Bessone, P., Rao, G., Schilbach, F., Schofield, H., & Toma, M.
- Affiliations
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology (US)
- National Bureau of Economic Research (US)
- University of Pennsylvania (US)
- Harvard University (US)
- Venue
- The Quarterly Journal of Economics
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2021-04-08
- Volume
- 136
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 1887-1941
- ISSN
- 0033-5533 (ISSN-L)
- 1531-4650
- PMC
- PMC8242594
- OpenAlex
- W3005464981
- Cited by
- 109
- References
- 10
- Citations by year
- 2026: 15 · 2025: 24 · 2024: 15 · 2023: 12 · 2022: 30 · 2021: 9 · 2020: 4
- FWCI
- 15.95
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Licence
- academic.oup.com/journals/pages/open_access/funder_policies/chorus/standard_publication_model (vor)
- Locations
- The Quarterly Journal of Economics (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Warwick Research Archive Portal (University of Warwick) (acceptedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institute on Aging
- National Institutes of Health (K01AG055691)
- National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
- Indian Council of Medical Research (AEARCTR-0002494)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Sleep and related disorders
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Sleep and Work-Related Fatigue
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Sleep and Wakefulness Research
- Keywords
- sleep duration, urban poverty, low-income adults, sleep efficiency, sleep disruption, sleep interventions, afternoon nap, labor productivity, cognitive performance, psychological well-being, labor supply, actigraphy, Chennai
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