The schooling decision Family preferences, intergenerational conflict, and moral hazard in the Brazilian favelas

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 treatme...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of political economy Vol. 120; no. 3; pp. 359 - 397
Main Authors Bursztyn, Leonardo, Coffman, Lucas C
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Chicago University of Chicago Press 01.06.2012
University of Chicago, acting through its Press
Subjects
Adolescents
Armut
Bildungsverhalten
Brasilien
Brazil
Economic theory
Educational institutions
Experimental methods
Government aid
Latin America
Parental discipline
Political economy
School attendance
Schooling
Slum
Studies
Test
Transfer
Tuition
Urban areas
Brazil
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Summary: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.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-2
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-1
content type line 23
ISSN:0047-2697
1537-534X
0022-3808
1537-534X
DOI:10.1086/666746