Economics of the family

In this paper we sketch a theory about the role of supernatural beliefs in incentivizing " good " behavior among children by parents. We present a simple theory on the production and the use of certain supernatural beliefs by parents to influence their children's behavior. A prime example of this is the idea of Santa Claus and the idea that Santa Claus rewards children according to how well they have behaved during the year. We show that under standard conditions parents face a time inconsistency problem when trying to incentivize their offspring. We claim that the production of beliefs in certain supernatural or quasi-supernatural persons who allegedly have infinite lives can help parents discipline their children. Finally, we extend this logic to a community and its ruler or rulers. We show that rulers can have incentives to influence the beliefs of their subjects. This incentive is greater whenever the ruler is a monopolist and when he or she expects to rule for a long period. Rulers with limited ability and/or superior technology for producing beliefs will also supply more supernatural stories to enforce their rule.

We present a model with pre-marital schooling investment, endogenous marital matching and spousal specialization in homework and market production. Investment in schooling raises ages and generates two kinds of returns in our framework: a labor-market return and a marriage-market return because education can affect the intra-marital share of the surplus one can extract from marriage. When the returns to education and household roles are gender neutral, men and women educate in equal proportions and there is pure positive assortative matching in the marriage market. But if men and women have different market returns or household roles, then there may be mixing in equilibrium where some educated individuals marry uneducated spouses and those who educate less extract a relatively larger share of the marital surplus. The existence of large and frictionless marriage markets creates competition among potential spouses, precludes bargaining and generates premarital investments that are efficient. Given that the gender wage gap narrows with the level of education, women's labor-market return from schooling is higher than that of men. Moreover, women's household time obligations have declined over time, raising their marriage-market return from schooling. Combining these two effects, we explain why women now attain higher schooling levels than men. JEL Classification:

Family is the base for the production of human and social capital. This wisdom is generally acknowledged by the sociology, but it's hardly acceptable by the economic paradigma, despite some spectacular findings in the near past (e.g. by Gary Becker). Notwithstanding it appears that family is a giantic economic sector, which produces great part of the ouput.

Economists who study the family acknowledge the importance of altruism and resource allocation that occurs between family members, and have developed a number of novel approaches to modelling this behaviour. This article suggests a new method, based on the moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant, which will highlight several unique features of intrafamily altruism. After summarizing Kant’s ethics and how it can be incorporated into the standard economic model of choice, I show how Kantian concepts of perfect and imperfect duty cast the standard models of intrafamily altruism and resource allocation in a new light. The inclusion of duty into the modelling explains how altruistic behaviour can continue when the affection has left a marriage, and blurs the lines between cooperative and non-cooperative models of resource allocation by highlighting the importance of binding commitment without external enforcement.

I examine charitable giving behaviors by married and permanently cohabiting couples.
  Looking first at differences between married, cohabiting, and single households, I find that married couples are more likely to give and to give more than other groups, especially to religious organizations. I then look at specific couples over time, examining particularly those who transition from cohabitation to marriage, and find that though couples who will eventually get married are predisposed to giving even before their marriage, their giving increases after marriage in a way not explained by changes in income or other relevant independent variables. This change is explained in large part by differences in households' income elasticities of giving across couple groups and over time. I also check the responsiveness of permanently cohabiting couples' giving to changes in the tax-price of both household members, and show that their giving responds only to changes in the higher earner's marginal tax rate.
  The results suggest a connection between the commitment mechanism of marriage and investment in the household public good of charitable giving.

I examine charitable giving behaviors by married and permanently cohabiting couples. Looking first at differences between married, cohabiting, and single households, I find that married couples are more likely to give and to give more than other groups, especially to religious organizations. I then look at specific couples over time, examining particularly those who transition from cohabitation to marriage, and find that though couples who will eventually get married are predisposed to giving even before their marriage, their giving increases after marriage in a way not explained by changes in income or other relevant independent variables. This change is explained in large part by differences in households' income elasticities of giving across couple groups and over time. I also check the responsiveness of permanently cohabiting couples' giving to changes in the tax-price of both household members, and show that their giving responds only to changes in the higher earner's marginal tax rate. The results suggest a connection between the commitment mechanism of marriage and investment in the household public good of charitable giving.

Per ridare linfa alla natalità non bastano assegni per i figli più generosi, un fisco più leggero o misure più incisive per favorire la conciliazione casa-lavoro. Ogni sforzo deve fare i conti con una cultura che ha trasformato i figli in un bene desiderato ma non primario, a volte un lusso, altre un optional. In questo senso la denatalità può essere considerata un sintomo della crisi del capitalismo?

This paper applies the panel fixed effects with vector decomposition esti-mator to three FDI data sets to estimate the impact of time-invariant variables on FDI while including fixed effects. We find that the omission of fixed effects significantly biases the results, leading to contradictory predictions regarding the effect of trade costs and culture across data sets. After eliminating these biases, the differences across data sets largely disappear and many time-invariant variables consistently indicate the importance of vertical FDI. This suggests that some controversies in the literature may be driven by the extent to which unaccounted fixed effects biases vary across different data sets. JEL no. F14, F23