Locus of Control and its Intergenerational Implications for Early Childhood Skill Formation

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Lekfuangfu, Warn N.; Powdthavee, Nattavudh; Warrinnier, Nele; Cornaglia, Francesca
• 署名单位: University of London; London School Economics & Political Science; Chulalongkorn University; University of Warwick; KU Leuven; University of London; Queen Mary University London
• 刊物名称: ECONOMIC JOURNAL
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0013-0133
• DOI: 10.1111/ecoj.12414
• 发表日期: 2018
• 页码: 298-329
• 关键词: maternal employment; cognitive-development; credit constraints; external-control; control scale; job search; panel-data; INVESTMENT; CHILDREN; education

摘要

This article builds upon Cunha's (2015) subjective rationality model in which parents have a subjective belief about the impact of their investment on their children's early skill formation. We propose that this subjective belief is determined partly by locus of control (LOC), i.e. the extent to which individuals believe that their actions can influence future outcomes. Consistent with the theory, we show that maternal LOC measured at the 12th week of gestation strongly predicts maternal attitudes towards parenting style and actual time investments. We also utilise maternal LOC to improve the specification typically used to estimate skill production function parameters.