Informal Institutions and Intergenerational Contracts: Evidence from Schooling and Remittances in Rural Tanzania

David Lassen and Helene Lilleør

No 2008-03, CAM Working Papers from University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics. Centre for Applied Microeconometrics

Abstract: This paper carries out a theoretical and empirical investigation of the role of informal institutions in facilitating intergenerational contracts governing investments in schooling and payments of pensions in the form of remittances. We show, using detailed household level data from rural Tanzania, that informal institutions of social control, rooted in tribal affiliations, determine both the household's investment in schooling and the probability that it receives remittances from migrants. This is consistent with a framework in which households' expected returns in the form of remittances, which is determined partly by the prospects of social control over migrants, influence current investments in schooling.

Keywords: intergenerational contract; social compact; schooling; human capital; traditions; ethnicity; ethnic diversity; social capital; Tanzania; Africa (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D13 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 28 pages
Date: 2008-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr, nep-dev, nep-edu, nep-mig and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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