Myopic misery: Maternal depression, child investments, and the neurobiological poverty trap

Arbeitspapier

In this paper, I explore in an overlapping generations framework, a mechanism motivating a neurobiological poverty trap. Poverty causes stress and depression in individuals susceptible to depression. Poor and depressed individuals discount the future at a higher rate and invest less in the human capital of their children than mentally healthy or rich individuals. This gene-environment interaction generates a vicious cycle in which poor individuals inherit not only susceptibility to depression but also stress and poverty. I show that a successful one-time intervention has the power to permanently eliminate the neurobiological poverty trap.

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• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: cege Discussion Papers ; No. 294

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development ; Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration ; Household Behavior: General ; Micro-Based Behavioral Economics: Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making‡ ; Health and Economic Development ; Education and Economic Development ; Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty: General
• Subject: child investment ; development ; depression ; discounting ; intergenerational transmission ; gene-environment interaction

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Strulik, Holger
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): University of Göttingen, Center for European, Governance and Economic Development Research (cege)
• (where): Göttingen
• (when): 2016

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/147421