The Schooling Decision: Family Preferences, Intergenerational Conflict, and Moral Hazard in the Brazilian Favelas

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Bursztyn, Leonardo; Coffman, Lucas C.
• 署名单位: University of California System; University of California Los Angeles; University System of Ohio; Ohio State University
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF POLITICAL ECONOMY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-3808
• DOI: 10.1086/666746
• 发表日期: 2012
• 页码: 359-397
• 关键词: Conditional cash transfers; child labor; Intrahousehold allocation; education; income; RESOURCES; ECONOMICS; returns; efficient; altruism

摘要

This paper experimentally analyzes the schooling decisions of poor households in urban Brazil. We elicit parents' choices between monthly government transfers conditional on their adolescent child attending school and guaranteed, unconditional transfers of varying sizes. In the baseline treatment, an overwhelming majority of parents prefer conditional transfers to larger unconditional transfers. However, few parents prefer conditional payments if they are offered text message notifications whenever their child misses school. These findings suggest important intergenerational conflicts in these schooling decisions, a lack of parental control and observability of school attendance, and an additional rationale for conditional cash transfer programs-the monitoring they provide.