Parenting with style: Altruism and paternalism in intergenerational preference transmission

Matthias Doepke and Fabrizio Zilibotti

No 104, ECON - Working Papers from Department of Economics - University of Zurich

Abstract: We construct a theory of intergenerational preference transmission that rationalizes the choice between alternative parenting styles (related to Baumrind 1967). Parents maximize an objective function that combines Beckerian and paternalistic altruism towards children. They can affect their children’s choices via two channels: either by influencing their 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. We consider two applications: patience and risk aversion. We argue that parenting styles may be important for explaining why different groups or societies develop different attitudes towards human capital formation, entrepreneurship, and innovation.

Keywords: Intergenerational preference transmission; altruism; paternalism; entrepreneurship; innovation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D10 J10 O10 O40 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012-12
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (28)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.zora.uzh.ch/id/eprint/70151/1/econwp104.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Parenting With Style: Altruism and Paternalism in Intergenerational Preference Transmission (2017)
Working Paper: Parenting with Style: Altruism and Paternalism in Intergenerational Preference Transmission (2014)
Working Paper: Parenting with Style: Altruism and Paternalism in Intergenerational Preference Transmission (2014)
Working Paper: Parenting with Style: Altruism and Paternalism in Intergenerational Preference Transmission (2014)
Working Paper: Parenting with Style: Altruism and Paternalism in Intergenerational Preference Transmission (2014)
Working Paper: Parenting with style: altruism and paternalism in intergenerational preference transmission (2014)
Working Paper: Parenting with Style: Altruism and Paternalism in Intergenerational Preference Transmission (2012)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zur:econwp:104

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in ECON - Working Papers from Department of Economics - University of Zurich Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Severin Oswald ().