Scandinavian Working Papers in Economics
Working Papers in Economics,
University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics
No 640: PARENTAL INVESTMENTS IN CHILD HEALTH – the importance of paternalistic altruism, child egoism and short-sightedness
Kristian Bolin () and Björn Lindgren
Additional contact information
Kristian Bolin: Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University, Postal: P.O Box 640, SE 40530 Gothenburg, Sweden
Björn Lindgren: Centre for Health Economics, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden 3 Department of Health Sciences, Lund University, Lund, Sweden 4 National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), Cambridge MA, United States
Abstract: Parent and child interaction is an important determinant of child health. Typically, parents are more forward-looking than their children and, hence, care about investments in human capital to a larger extent. In this paper we consider the parent-child health-related interaction, when the parent is altruistic and forward-looking and the child is egoistic and short-sighted. The child receives a monetary transfer, from the parent, which is used to finance either health-unrelated consumption or unhealthy behaviour. We apply a simple differential-game approach, assuming linear-state preferences, and study equilibrium time-paths of (a) the parental transfer, (b) the unhealthy behaviour, and (c) the stock of child health capital. We distinguish between the case in which the child is perfectly myopic and the case in which he or she is forward looking.
Keywords: Health capital; parent-child interaction; myopic behaviour; differential game
JEL-codes: I12
25 pages, December 2015
Full text files
41330 HTML file
Questions (including download problems) about the papers in this series should be directed to Jessica Oscarsson ()
Report other problems with accessing this service to Sune Karlsson ().
RePEc:hhs:gunwpe:0640This page generated on 2024-11-14 18:33:27.