It's all in the stars: The Chinese zodiac and the effects of parental investments on offspring's cognitive and noncognitive skill development

Chih Ming Tan, Xiao Wang and Xiaobo Zhang

Economics of Transition and Institutional Change, 2024, vol. 32, issue 3, 877-920

Abstract: Parental investments in children's cognitive and noncognitive outcomes are deeply important to policymakers. However, because parental investments are arguably endogenous, estimating their importance empirically poses a challenge. To address this challenge, this paper exploits a rich and novel dataset, the China Family Panel Studies, and proposes a culture‐specific instrumental variable based on the Chinese zodiac. By comparing the outcomes of children born just before and just after the cutoff for a “lucky” (or ‘unlucky’) zodiac sign, we find that parents' investments have significant effects on offspring's development of both cognitive and noncognitive skills.

Date: 2024
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https://doi.org/10.1111/ecot.12405

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Working Paper: It’s All in the Stars: The Chinese Zodiac and the Effects of Parental Investments on Offspring’s Cognitive and Noncognitive Skill Development (2019)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wly:ectrin:v:32:y:2024:i:3:p:877-920

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