Parental Responses to Child Support Obligations: Evidence from Administrative Data / Maya Rossin-Slater, Miriam Wüst.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Rossin-Slater, Maya.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Wüst, Miriam.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w22227.

NBER working paper series no. w22227

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Other Title:

Parental Responses to Child Support Obligations

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2016.

Summary:

We leverage non-linearities in Danish child support guidelines and rich administrative data to provide causal estimates of parental behavioral responses to child support obligations. We estimate that a 1,000 DKK ($149) increase in a father's obligation is associated with a 506 DKK ($75) increase in his payment. A higher obligation also reduces father-child co-residence, pointing to substitution between financial and non-pecuniary investments. Further, obligations increase parental post-separation fertility, and reduce labor supply among high-income fathers. Our findings suggest that government efforts to increase child investments through mandates on parents can be complicated by their behavioral responses to them.

Notes:

Print version record

May 2016.