《关于爱的经济学分析》

Endogenous Altruism:

Theory and Evidence from Chinese Twins

主讲人：易君健 教授 新加坡国立大学经济系

时间地点：图书馆报告厅 5月7日周四下午3:00-5:00

主讲人简介

Ph.D., Economics (2007-2011), Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK)

Postdoctoral Scholar (2011-2014), Department of Economics, University of Chicago

Assistant Professor, (2014 - ), Department of Economics, National University of Singapore

Research Interests

Labor and Demographic Economics; Economic Development; Economics on Human Capital; Chinese Economy

内容简介

This paper investigates the endogenous formation of inter-sibling altruism and its implications for family investment in children's human capital. My fundamental hypothesis is that parents’ incentives to teach children to be altruistic is positively related to the efficiency gains from investing more in the gifted child than in the less gifted one. To test the hypothesis, I use within-twin differences in birth weight as an exogenous variable that creates an efficiency incentive for parents to invest more in the gifted or heavier child. I find that parents are more likely to educate their children to be altruistic when gaps in children’s birth weight are larger. Given gaps in birth weight, parents invest more in the heavier child's human capital when they educate their children to be more altruistic. Furthermore, fertility increases the intensity of family altruistic education, and then parents invest more in the heavier child. Finally, family altruistic education enhances children's transfers in adulthood. The results suggest the degree of parental aversion to inequality is understated in the literature.