Changing Families: Family Relationships, Parental Decisions, and Child Development
构建了一个经济框架，研究家庭结构对儿童认知和非认知能力的影响，发现高能力父亲的时间投入有正回报，低能力父亲则可能产生负回报，对家庭政策有启示。
We develop a tractable economic framework to study the impact of family structure on children’s cognitive and noncognitive outcomes. Combining a sequential choice model with panel data on both biological parents, irrespective of subsequent relationship status, and on social fathers and a set of exclusion restrictions, we identify the unobserved heterogeneity of biological families and examine child skill formation via a control function approach. Time investments made by high-ability fathers have positive returns, whereas those made by low-ability fathers can generate negative returns. Policies that incentivize family formation should consider the quality of the fathers whom mothers are cohabited with.