Parents' Beliefs about Their Children's Academic Ability: Implications for Educational Investments

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Dizon-Ross, Rebecca
• 署名单位: University of Chicago
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282
• DOI: 10.1257/aer.20171172
• 发表日期: 2019
• 页码: 2728-2765
• 关键词: randomized evaluation; college major; INFORMATION; decisions

摘要

Schools worldwide distribute information to parents about their children's academic performance. Do frictions prevent parents, particularly low-income parents, from accessing this information to make decisions? A field experiment in Malawi shows that, at baseline, parents' beliefs about their children's academic performance are often inaccurate. Providing parents with clear, digestible performance information causes them to update their beliefs and adjust their investments: they increase the school enrollment of their higher-performing children, decrease the enrollment of lower-performing children, and choose educational inputs that are more closely matched to their children's academic level. Heterogeneity analysis suggests information frictions are worse among the poor.