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  5. Not Playing Favorites: Parents and the Value of Equal Opportunity

American Economic Journal:
Applied Economics

ISSN 1945-7782 (Print) | ISSN 1945-7790 (Online)

Not Playing Favorites: Parents and the Value of Equal Opportunity

  • James Berry
  • Rebecca Dizon-Ross
  • Maulik Jagnani
American Economic Journal: Applied Economics (Forthcoming)

Abstract

We conduct two experiments to identify the value parents place on equality of opportunity when investing in children. The experiments exogenously vary the short-run returns to educational investments to identify the weight placed on equalizing “opportunity” (child-level investment) relative to maximizing “returns" (total household earnings) or to equalizing “outcomes" (child-level expected earnings). While parents in both experiments place some weight on maximizing returns, they also display a strong preference for equalizing opportunities and are willing to forgo 15-45% of their earnings to do so. Parents in higher-income countries also care about equalizing outcomes, while parents in lower-income countries do not.

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