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The Power of the Family

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Author Info
Alberto Alesina
Paola Giuliano

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Abstract

The structure of family relationships influences economic behavior and attitudes. We define our measure of family ties using individual responses from the World Value Survey regarding the role of the family and the love and respect that children need to have for their parents for over 70 countries. We show that strong family ties imply more reliance on the family as an economic unit which provides goods and services and less on the market and on the government for social insurance. With strong family ties home production is higher, labor force participation of women and youngsters, and geographical mobility, lower. Families are larger (higher fertility and higher family size) with strong family ties, which is consistent with the idea of the family as an important economic unit. We present evidence on cross country regressions. To assess causality we look at the behavior of second generation immigrants in the US and we employ a variable based on the grammatical rule of pronoun drop as an instrument for family ties. Our results overall indicate a significant influence of the strength of family ties on economic outcomes.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 13051.

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Date of creation: Apr 2007
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13051

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H20 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - General
J01 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - Labor Economics: General

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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. Marianne Bertrand & Antoinette Schoar, 2006. "The Role of Family in Family Firms," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 20(2), pages 73-96, Spring.
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  3. Edward C. Prescott, 2004. "Why do Americans work so much more than Europeans?," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, issue Jul, pages 2-13. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  4. Alberto Alesina & Edward L. Glaeser & Bruce Sacerdote, 2005. "Work and Leisure in the U.S. and Europe: Why So Different?," NBER Working Papers 11278, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  5. Raquel Fernandez & Alessandra Fogli, 2005. "Culture: An Empirical Investigation of Beliefs, Work, and Fertility," NBER Working Papers 11268, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  6. Michael Burda & Daniel S. Hamermesh & Philippe Weil, 2007. "Total Work, Gender and Social Norms," SFB 649 Discussion Papers SFB649DP2007-058, Sonderforschungsbereich 649, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany. [Downloadable!]
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  7. Zak, Paul J & Knack, Stephen, 2001. "Trust and Growth," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 111(470), pages 295-321, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. Blanchflower, David G. & Oswald, Andrew J., 2004. "Well-being over time in Britain and the USA," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(7-8), pages 1359-1386, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  10. Luigi Guiso & Paola Sapienza & Luigi Zingales, 2004. "Cultural Biases in Economic Exchange," NBER Working Papers 11005, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  11. Olivier Blanchard, 2004. "The Economic Future of Europe," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 18(4), pages 3-26, Fall. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  12. La Ferrara, Eliana, 2003. "Kin Groups and Reciprocity: A Model of Credit Transactions in Ghana," CEPR Discussion Papers 3705, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  13. Knack, Stephen & Keefer, Philip, 1997. "Does Social Capital Have an Economic Payoff? A Cross-Country Investigation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 112(4), pages 1251-88, November.
  14. Alesina, Alberto & La Ferrara, Eliana, 2002. "Who trusts others?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(2), pages 207-234, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  15. Nicole M Fortin, 2005. "Gender Role Attitudes and the Labour-market Outcomes of Women across OECD Countries," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press, vol. 21(3), pages 416-438, Autumn.
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  19. Easton, Stephen T & Walker, Michael A, 1997. "Income, Growth, and Economic Freedom," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(2), pages 328-32, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  20. Paola Giuliano, 2004. "On the determinants of living arrangements in Western Europe: Does Cultural Origin Matter?," Econometric Society 2004 North American Summer Meetings 68, Econometric Society.
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Cited by:
(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. Alberto Alesina & Andrea Ichino & Loukas Karabarbounis, 2007. "Gender Based Taxation and the Division of Family Chores," IZA Discussion Papers 3233, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
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  2. Alessandra Fogli & Laura Veldkamp, 2008. "Nature or Nurture? Learning and the Geography of Female Labor Force Participation," NBER Working Papers 14097, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Guido Tabellini, . "Institutions and Culture," Working Papers 330, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University. [Downloadable!]
  4. Alessandra Fogli & Laura Veldkamp, 2007. "Nature or Nurture? Learning and Female Labor Force Dynamics," Working Papers 07-12, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  5. Alger, Ingela & Weibull, Jörgen, 2007. "Family ties, incentives and development: a model of coerced altruism," Working Paper Series in Economics and Finance 681, Stockholm School of Economics. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  6. Alger, Ingela & Weibull, Jörgen, 2007. "The Fetters of the Sib: Weber Meets Darwin," Working Paper Series in Economics and Finance 682, Stockholm School of Economics. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
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