Do siblings free-ride in being there for parents?

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Maruyama, Shiko; Johar, Meliyanni
• 署名单位: University of Technology Sydney
• 刊物名称: QUANTITATIVE ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1759-7323
• DOI: 10.3982/QE389
• 发表日期: 2017
• 页码: 277-316
• 关键词: Public goods; empirical game; informal care; free-riding; sequential participation game; first-mover advantage; prisoners' dilemma

摘要

There is a potential free-rider problem when several siblings consider future provision of care for their elderly parents. Siblings can commit to not providing long-term support by living far away. If location decisions are made by birth order, older siblings may enjoy a first-mover advantage. We study siblings' location decisions relative to their parents by estimating a sequential participation game for U.S. data. We find (i) limited strategic behavior, that is, in two-child families, more than 92% of children have a dominant strategy, and (ii) a nonnegligible public good problem, that is, in families with multiple children, 18.3% more parents would have had at least one child living nearby had location decisions been made cooperatively.