IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/labeco/v19y2012i5p668-681.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A model of child support and the underground economy

Author

Listed:
  • Roff, Jennifer
  • Lugo-Gil, Julieta

Abstract

We develop and estimate a model of the informal and formal employment decisions of American noncustodial fathers who have never married the mother of their child, as well as the paternity establishment decisions of the mothers. Fathers may evade child support payment through informal child support payments to induce the mother not to cooperate with the child support authorities or through underground work. To estimate the model, we use data drawn from the Fragile Families dataset and a discrete model of no work, part-time work and full-time work in both sectors, as well as paternal child support payment. Simulation results indicate that an increase in the order amount leads to small but statistically significant decreases in formal child support, as well as an increase in underground work.

Suggested Citation

  • Roff, Jennifer & Lugo-Gil, Julieta, 2012. "A model of child support and the underground economy," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(5), pages 668-681.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:labeco:v:19:y:2012:i:5:p:668-681
    DOI: 10.1016/j.labeco.2012.03.006
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0927537112000255
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.labeco.2012.03.006?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Keane, Michael & Moffitt, Robert, 1998. "A Structural Model of Multiple Welfare Program Participation and Labor Supply," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 39(3), pages 553-589, August.
    2. Flinn, Christopher J, 2000. "Modes of Interaction between Divorced Parents," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 41(3), pages 545-578, August.
    3. McFadden, Daniel, 1989. "A Method of Simulated Moments for Estimation of Discrete Response Models without Numerical Integration," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(5), pages 995-1026, September.
    4. Hoynes, Hilary Williamson, 1996. "Welfare Transfers in Two-Parent Families: Labor Supply and Welfare Participation under AFDC-UP," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(2), pages 295-332, March.
    5. Maureen R Waller & Robert Plotnick, 2001. "Effective child support policy for low-income families: evidence from street level research," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 20(1), pages 89-110.
    6. Lauren M. Rich & Irwin Garfinkel & Qin Gao, 2007. "Child support enforcement policy and unmarried fathers' employment in the underground and regular economies," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(4), pages 791-810.
    7. Cowell, Frank A., 1985. "Tax evasion with labour income," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 19-34, February.
    8. Lacroix, Guy & Fortin, Bernard, 1992. "Utility-Based Estimation of Labour Supply Functions in the Regular and Irregular Sectors," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 102(415), pages 1407-1422, November.
    9. Jennifer Roff, 2008. "A Stackelberg Model Of Child Support And Welfare," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 49(2), pages 515-546, May.
    10. Weiss, Yoram & Willis, Robert J, 1993. "Transfers among Divorced Couples: Evidence and Interpretation," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 11(4), pages 629-679, October.
    11. Arthur van Soest, 1995. "Structural Models of Family Labor Supply: A Discrete Choice Approach," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 30(1), pages 63-88.
    12. Donald, Stephen G. & Hamermesh, Daniel S., 2009. "A structural model of the fixed time costs of market work," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 104(3), pages 125-128, September.
    13. Del Boca, Daniela & Flinn, Christopher J, 1995. "Rationalizing Child-Support Decisions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(5), pages 1241-1262, December.
    14. Frederiksen, Anders & Graversen, Ebbe Krogh & Smith, Nina, 2005. "Tax evasion and work in the underground sector," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(5), pages 613-628, October.
    15. Hanming Fang & Michael P. Keane, 2004. "Assessing the Impact of Welfare Reform on Single Mothers," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 35(1), pages 1-116.
    16. Wei-Yin Hu, 1999. "Child Support, Welfare Dependency, and Women's Labor Supply," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 34(1), pages 71-103.
    17. Lauren M. Rich & Sun-Bin Kim, 2001. "Taxes and Unmarried Fathers' Participation in the Underground Economy," JCPR Working Papers 237, Northwestern University/University of Chicago Joint Center for Poverty Research.
    18. Laurie J. Bassi & Robert I. Lerman, 1996. "Reducing the child support welfare disincentive problem," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 15(1), pages 89-96.
    19. Elaine Sorensen & Ariel Hill, 2004. "Single Mothers and Their Child-Support Receipt: How Well Is Child-Support Enforcement Doing?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 39(1).
    20. Robins, Philip K, 1986. "Child Support, Welfare Dependency, and Poverty," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(4), pages 768-788, September.
    21. Daniel Meyer, 1993. "Child support and welfare dynamics: Evidence from Wisconsin," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 30(1), pages 45-62, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Raute, Anna & Weber, Andrea & Zudenkova, Galina, 2022. "Can public policy increase paternity acknowledgement? Evidence from earnings-related parental leave," CEPR Discussion Papers 17073, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Rossin-Slater, Maya & Wüst, Miriam, 2018. "Parental responses to child support obligations: Evidence from administrative data," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 164(C), pages 183-196.
    3. Maya Rossin-Slater, 2017. "Signing Up New Fathers: Do Paternity Establishment Initiatives Increase Marriage, Parental Investment, and Child Well-Being?," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(2), pages 93-130, April.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jennifer Roff, 2008. "A Stackelberg Model Of Child Support And Welfare," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 49(2), pages 515-546, May.
    2. Ian Walker & Gillian Paull & Yu Zhu, 2000. "Child support reform: some analysis of the 1999 White Paper," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 21(1), pages 105-140, March.
    3. Kabátek, Jan, 2015. "Essays on public policy and household decision making," Other publications TiSEM 8cdb178e-ad98-42e5-a7e1-b, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    4. Rolf Aaberge & Ugo Colombino, 2014. "Labour Supply Models," Contributions to Economic Analysis, in: Handbook of Microsimulation Modelling, volume 127, pages 167-221, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    5. Olivier Bargain, 2017. "Welfare analysis and redistributive policies," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 15(4), pages 393-419, December.
    6. Francesconi, Marco & Van Der Klaauw, Wilbert & Rainer, Helmut, 2008. "Unintended Consequences of Welfare Reform: The Case of Divorced Parents," CEPR Discussion Papers 7107, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    7. Michael P. Keane & Kenneth I. Wolpin, 2010. "The Role Of Labor And Marriage Markets, Preference Heterogeneity, And The Welfare System In The Life Cycle Decisions Of Black, Hispanic, And White Women," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 51(3), pages 851-892, August.
    8. Christine Hauser, 2008. "Child Support Enforcement and Children's Consumption," 2008 Meeting Papers 630, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    9. Jennifer Roff, 2010. "Welfare, Child Support, and Strategic Behavior: Do High Orders and Low Disregards Discourage Child Support Awards?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 45(1).
    10. Urvi Neelakantan, 2009. "The impact of changes in child support policy," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 22(3), pages 641-663, July.
    11. José Labeaga & Xisco Oliver & Amedeo Spadaro, 2008. "Discrete choice models of labour supply, behavioural microsimulation and the Spanish tax reforms," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 6(3), pages 247-273, September.
    12. Frederic Vermeulen, 2006. "A collective model for female labour supply with non-participation and taxation," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 19(1), pages 99-118, February.
    13. Hans G. Bloemen & Arie Kapteyn, 2008. "The estimation of utility-consistent labor supply models by means of simulated scores," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(4), pages 395-422.
    14. Olivier Bargain & Kristian Orsini & Andreas Peichl, 2014. "Comparing Labor Supply Elasticities in Europe and the United States: New Results," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 49(3), pages 723-838.
    15. Mauro Mastrogiacomo & Nicole M. Bosch & Miriam D. A. C. Gielen & Egbert L. W. Jongen, 2017. "Heterogeneity in Labour Supply Responses: Evidence from a Major Tax Reform," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 79(5), pages 769-796, October.
    16. Hanno Foerster, 2019. "The Impact of Post-Marital Maintenance on Dynamic Decisions and Welfare of Couples," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 982, Boston College Department of Economics.
    17. Anna Kurowska & Michal Myck & Katharina Wrohlich, 2012. "Family and Labor Market Choices: Requirements to Guide Effective Evidence-Based Policy," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1234, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    18. John Creedy & Guyonne Kalb & Rosanna Scutella, 2006. "Income distribution in discrete hours behavioural microsimulation models: An illustration," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 4(1), pages 57-76, April.
    19. Robert I. Lerman & Elaine Sorenson, 2003. "Child Support: Interactions between Private and Public Transfers," NBER Chapters, in: Means-Tested Transfer Programs in the United States, pages 587-628, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Daniela Del Boca, 2003. "Mothers, fathers and children after divorce: The role of institutions," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 16(3), pages 399-422, August.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:labeco:v:19:y:2012:i:5:p:668-681. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/labeco .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.