TY  - JOUR
AU  - Doepke, Matthias
AU  - Zilibotti, Fabrizio
TI  - Parenting with Style: Altruism and Paternalism in Intergenerational Preference Transmission
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 20214
PY  - 2014
Y2  - June 2014
DO  - 10.3386/w20214
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w20214
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w20214.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Matthias Doepke
Northwestern University
Department of Economics
2211 Campus Drive
Evanston, IL 60208
Tel: 847-491-8207
E-Mail: doepke@northwestern.edu

Fabrizio Zilibotti
Department of Economics
Yale University
28 Hillhouse Avenue
New Haven, CT 06520
Tel: 203/432-9561
E-Mail: fabrizio.zilibotti@yale.edu
AB  - We develop a theory of parent-child relations that rationalizes the choice between alternative parenting styles (as set out in Baumrind 1967). Parents maximize an objective function that combines Beckerian altruism and paternalism towards children. They can affect their children’s choices via two channels: either by influencing children’s preferences or by imposing direct restrictions on their choice sets. Different parenting styles (authoritarian, authoritative, and permissive) emerge as equilibrium outcomes and are affected both by parental preferences and by the socioeconomic environment. Parenting style, in turn, feeds back into the children’s welfare and economic success. The theory is consistent with the decline of authoritarian parenting observed in industrialized countries and with the greater prevalence of more permissive parenting in countries characterized by low inequality.
ER  -