Not Playing Favorites: Parents and the Value of Equal Opportunity

James Berry, Rebecca Dizon-Ross and Maulik Jagnani

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 2025, vol. 17, issue 3, 117-60

Abstract: We conduct two experiments to identify the value parents place on equality of opportunity when investing in children. The experiments exogenously vary short-run returns to educational investments to identify the weight placed on equalizing "opportunity" (child-level investment) relative to maximizing "returns" (total household earnings) or to equalizing "outcomes" (child-level expected earnings). While parents in both experiments place some weight on maximizing returns, they also display a strong preference for equalizing opportunities and are willing to forgo 15–45 percent of their earnings to do so. Parents in higher-income countries also care about equalizing outcomes, while parents in lower-income countries do not.

JEL-codes: D63 J12 J13 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1257/app.20220601

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