Parenting with Style: Altruism and Paternalism in Intergenerational Preference Transmission / Matthias Doepke, Fabrizio Zilibotti.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Doepke, Matthias.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Zilibotti, Fabrizio.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w20214.

NBER working paper series no. w20214

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Other Title:

Parenting with Style

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2014.

Summary:

We develop a theory of parent-child relations that rationalizes the choice between alternative parenting styles (as set out in Baumrind 1967). Parents maximize an objective function that combines Beckerian altruism and paternalism towards children. They can affect their children's choices via two channels: either by influencing children's preferences or by imposing direct restrictions on their choice sets. Different parenting styles (authoritarian, authoritative, and permissive) emerge as equilibrium outcomes and are affected both by parental preferences and by the socioeconomic environment. Parenting style, in turn, feeds back into the children's welfare and economic success. The theory is consistent with the decline of authoritarian parenting observed in industrialized countries and with the greater prevalence of more permissive parenting in countries characterized by low inequality.

Notes:

Print version record

June 2014.