Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/175231 
Year of Publication: 
2016
Series/Report no.: 
Working Paper No. 794
Publisher: 
Queen Mary University of London, School of Economics and Finance, London
Abstract: 
This paper builds upon Cunha's (2015) subjective rationality model in which parents have a subjective belief about the impact of their investment on the early skill formation of their children. We propose that this subjective belief is determined in part by locus of control (LOC), i.e., the extent to which individuals believe that their actions can influence future outcomes. Consistent with the theory, we show that maternal LOC measured at the 12th week of gestation strongly predicts maternal attitudes towards parenting style, maternal time investments, as well as early and late cognitive outcomes. We also utilize the variation in inputs and outputs by maternal LOC to help improve the specification typically used in the estimation of skill production function parameters.
Subjects: 
Locus of control
Parental investment
Human capital accumulation
Early skill formation
ALSPAC
JEL: 
J01
I31
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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