Do Economic Preferences of Children Predict Behavior?

Arbeitspapier

We use novel data on nearly 6,000 children and adolescents aged 6 to 16 that combine incentivized measures of social, time, and risk preferences with rich information on child behavior and family environment to study whether children's economic preferences predict their behavior. Results from standard regression specifications demonstrate the predictive power of children's preferences for their prosociality, educational achievement, risky behaviors, emotional health, and behavioral problems. In a second step, we add information on a family's socio-economic status, family structure, religion, parental preferences and IQ, and parenting style to capture household environment. As a result, the predictive power of preferences for behavior attenuates. We discuss implications of our findings for research on the formation of children's preferences and behavior.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 16834

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Design of Experiments: Laboratory, Individual ; Microeconomic Behavior: Underlying Principles
• Subject: social preferences ; time preferences ; risk preferences ; experiments with children ; origins of preferences ; human capital ; behavior

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Breitkopf, Laura ; Chowdhury, Shyamal ; Priyam, Shambhavi ; Schildberg-Hörisch, Hannah ; Sutter, Matthias
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
• (where): Bonn
• (when): 2024

Further information

• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:45 AM CET