Premium
Parents’ Discount Rate and the Intergenerational Transmission of Cognitive Skills
Author(s) -
Agee Mark D.,
Crocker Thomas D.
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
economica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.532
H-Index - 65
eISSN - 1468-0335
pISSN - 0013-0427
DOI - 10.1111/1468-0335.00274
Subject(s) - cognitive skill , cognition , psychology , developmental psychology , non cognitive , transmission (telecommunications) , index (typography) , test (biology) , economics , computer science , biology , telecommunications , neuroscience , world wide web , paleontology
We use estimates of parents’ discount rate, inferred from their decisions to treat their children’s body burdens of lead, to test empirically a model of transmission of cognitive skills from parents to children. The development of a child’s cognitive skills depends in part upon the specific environment in which the skills are nurtured. The parental discount rate serves as a theoretically well defined index for a broad array of nurturing investments in the child. We find that children whose parents have a lower estimated discount rate exhibit higher assessed cognitive skills.