The study looked at how people make decisions about risk and time, finding that individuals have different preferences in these areas. The researchers used a field experiment in Canada to estimate these preferences and found that they remain consistent across different scenarios. They then tested how well these preferences could predict decisions about higher education grants, which have much higher stakes than the initial cash transfers used to measure preferences. The study found that long-term risk and time preferences were useful in predicting decisions, while short-term preferences were not as relevant.