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Parenting with Patience: Parental Incentives and Child Development

Author

Listed:
  • Del Boca, Daniela

    (University of Turin)

  • Flinn, Christopher

    (New York University)

  • Verriest, Ewout

    (New York University)

  • Wiswall, Matthew

    (University of Wisconsin-Madison)

Abstract

We construct a dynamic model of child development where forward-looking parents and children jointly take actions to increase the child's cognitive and non-cognitive skills within a Markov Perfect Equilibrium framework. In addition to time and money investments in their child, parents also choose whether to use explicit incentives to increase the child's self-investment, which may reduce the child's future intrinsic motivation to invest by reducing the child's discount factor. We use the estimated model parameters to show that the use of extrinsic motivation has large costs in terms of the child's future incentives to invest in themselves.

Suggested Citation

  • Del Boca, Daniela & Flinn, Christopher & Verriest, Ewout & Wiswall, Matthew, 2023. "Parenting with Patience: Parental Incentives and Child Development," IZA Discussion Papers 16441, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16441
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    time allocation; child development; parenting styles;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • D1 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior

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