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Transfers to Families with Children as a Principal-Agent Problem

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Author Info
Alessandro Cigno
Annalisa Luporini
Anna Pettini

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Abstract

The relationship between government and parents is modelled as a principal-agent problem, with the former in the role of principal and the latter in the role of agents. We make three major points. The first is that, if the well-being of the child depends not only on luck, but also on parental actions that the government cannot readily observe, the latter can influence parental behaviour indirectly, by conditioning transfers on performance. The second point is that, if there are market inputs into the making of a happy or successful child, which the government can observe, but cannot ascribe to any particular parent or child because they are bought anonymously, an income transfer policy can be usefully complemented by an indirect tax policy that systematically distorts prices in favour of these inputs. The third is that, if parents care about their children, insurance and incentive considerations must be tempered by the need to compensate parents who have the misfortune of getting a child with low ability or, more generally, less well equipped to make the most of life. Ways of making these findings operative are discussed in some detail.

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Paper provided by CESifo Group Munich in its series CESifo Working Paper Series with number CESifo Working Paper No. 351.

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Date of creation: 2000
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Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_351

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information
H21 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Efficiency; Optimal Taxation
J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth

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  1. Paul R. Milgrom, 1981. "Good News and Bad News: Representation Theorems and Applications," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 12(2), pages 380-391, Autumn. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  2. Jewitt, Ian, 1988. "Justifying the First-Order Approach to Principal-Agent Problems," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 56(5), pages 1177-90, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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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. Miriam Steurer, 2009. "Extending the Aaron Condition for Alternative Pay-as-You-Go Pension Systems," Discussion Papers 2009-03, School of Economics, The University of New South Wales. [Downloadable!]
  2. Olivier Bargain & Olivier Donni, 2007. "A Theory of Child Targeting," Working Papers 200703, School Of Economics, University College Dublin. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  3. CREMER, Helmuth & GAHVARI, Firouz & PESTIEAU, Pierre, 2004. "Pensions with Endogenous and Stochastic Fertility," IDEI Working Papers 305, Institut d'Économie Industrielle (IDEI), Toulouse. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  4. Miriam Steurer, 2009. "Fertility Decisions and the Sustainability of Defined Benefit Pay-as-You-Go Pension Systems," Discussion Papers 2009-06, School of Economics, The University of New South Wales. [Downloadable!]
  5. Volker Meier & Matthias Wrede, 2008. "Reducing the Excess Burden of Subsidizing the Stork: Joint Taxation, Individual Taxation, and Family Tax Splitting," CESifo Working Paper Series CESifo Working Paper No. , CESifo Group Munich. [Downloadable!]
  6. Miriam Steurer, 2009. "Children as Family Public Goods: Some Implications for Fertility," Discussion Papers 2009-04, School of Economics, The University of New South Wales. [Downloadable!]
  7. Martin Barbie & Marcus Hagedorn & Ashok Kaul, . "Fostering Within-Family Human Capital Investment: An Intragenerational Insurance Perspective of Social Security," IEW - Working Papers iewwp236, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - IEW. [Downloadable!]
  8. Alessandro Cigno & Annalisa Luporini, 2006. "Optimal Policy Towards Families with Different Amounts of Social Capital, in the Presence of Asymmetric Information and Stochastic Fertility," CESifo Working Paper Series CESifo Working Paper No. , CESifo Group Munich. [Downloadable!]
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  9. Alessandro Cigno, 2001. "Comparative Advantage, Observability, and the Optimal Tax Treatment of Families with Children," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer, vol. 8(4), pages 455-470, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  10. CREMER, Helmuth & GAHVARI, Firouz & PESTIEAU, Pierre, 2004. "Pensions with Heterogenous Individuals and Endogenous Fertility," IDEI Working Papers 313, Institut d'Économie Industrielle (IDEI), Toulouse. [Downloadable!]
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  11. Helmuth Cremer & Firouz Gahvari & Pierre Pestieau, 2003. "Stochastic fertility, moral hazard, and the design of pay-as-you-go pension plans," DELTA Working Papers 2003-21, DELTA (Ecole normale supérieure). [Downloadable!]
  12. Alessandro Balestrino, 2001. "On The Optimal Fiscal Treatment Of Family Size," CHILD Working Papers wp04_01, CHILD - Centre for Household, Income, Labour and Demographic economics - ITALY. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
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