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Early Childhood Investments in Human Capital: Parental Resources and Preferences

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Author Info
Sonia Bhalotra ()

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Abstract

This paper investigates the way in which parental human capital investment in young co-resident children varies with their own consumption. It is motivated by rejection of parental altruism in recent research, the unexpectedly small effects of parental income on child outcomes found in a number of studies, and the claim in several historical and anthropological studies of child labour that parents are selfish. Models of child labour and human capital typically assume parental altruism and, in many cases, this assumption is critical to the model. The results suggest that, in the preference function of parents, child human capital is a normal good and that child labour is a bad, consistent with altruism.

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File URL: http://www.efm.bris.ac.uk/economics/working_papers/pdffiles/dp04562.pdf
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Publisher Info
Paper provided by Department of Economics, University of Bristol, UK in its series Bristol Economics Discussion Papers with number 04/562.

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Length: 33 pages
Date of creation: Nov 2004
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:bri:uobdis:04/562

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Related research
Keywords: altruism; m-demands; intra-household allocation; cash transfers; child poverty; tobacco;

Find related papers by JEL classification:
C2 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables
I2 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education
O1 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development
R2 - Urban, Rural, and Regional Economics - - Household Analysis

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(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Schindler, Kati, 2006. "Credit for what? Informal credit as a coping strategy of market women in northern Ghana," Proceedings of the German Development Economics Conference, Berlin 2006 24, Verein für Socialpolitik, Research Committee Development Economics. [Downloadable!]
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