TY - JOUR
T1 - An equilibrium model of child maltreatment
AU - Akabayashi, Hideo
N1 - Funding Information:
This article is a revision of the manuscript titled “A dynamic equilibrium model of parenting and child development with changing preferences and beliefs,” which was a chapter in my dissertation submitted to the University of Chicago. I would like to thank Gary Becker, Sherwin Rosen, and Robert Willis for their encouragement. Comments from anonymous referees greatly improved the paper. I am also grateful to Alex Taber and participants of seminars at numerous universities for comments. Financial support from the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, Keio University, and the Japan Institute of Life Insurance are also gratefully acknowledged. All remaining errors are mine.
PY - 2006/6
Y1 - 2006/6
N2 - We propose a dynamic equilibrium model of human capital development of a child that can explain why a parent-child relationship might lead to child maltreatment. Assuming that a parent cannot observe a child's human capital accumulation or effort, and that the child's time preference develops endogenously, an unstable path of the parent's beliefs regarding the child can persist in equilibrium when the parent faces a high degree of uncertainty in inferring the child's human capital. The parent with an initial high estimate of the human capital then tends to underestimate the child's effort, which results in persistently punitive - abusive - interactions.
AB - We propose a dynamic equilibrium model of human capital development of a child that can explain why a parent-child relationship might lead to child maltreatment. Assuming that a parent cannot observe a child's human capital accumulation or effort, and that the child's time preference develops endogenously, an unstable path of the parent's beliefs regarding the child can persist in equilibrium when the parent faces a high degree of uncertainty in inferring the child's human capital. The parent with an initial high estimate of the human capital then tends to underestimate the child's effort, which results in persistently punitive - abusive - interactions.
KW - Human capital
KW - Parental education
KW - Time preference
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U2 - 10.1016/j.jedc.2005.03.010
DO - 10.1016/j.jedc.2005.03.010
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:33646257055
SN - 0165-1889
VL - 30
SP - 993
EP - 1025
JO - Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control
JF - Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control
IS - 6
ER -