The Economics of Parenting, Self-esteem and Academic Performance: Theory and a Test

Abstract

This paper develops a theory about how signals sent to a child by an altruistic parent affect the child's selfesteem, effort and long-term performance when the parent has better information about child ability than the child does. We carry out OLS, 2SLS and 3SLS estimations of our model on a sample of 651 college students. Our results show that some complementary actions before college, such as parental praise, foster academic achievement above what natural ability would predict. Conversely, we find that some substitutionary actions before college, e.g. providing cars as gifts, are associated with lower effort in college and underachievement.

Hidden Human Capital: Psychological Empowerment and Adolescent Girls' Aspirations in India

“…one where girls have family/social support, feel connected and have empowered parents and other successful role models to look up to, appear to be important. Consistent with our results, Darolia and Wydick (2011) find that actions such as parental praise designed to foster an increase in self-esteem result in academic achievement in university undergraduates above what natural ability would dictate.…”

Hidden human capital: Self-efficacy, aspirations and achievements of adolescent and young women in India

“…Consistent with our results, Darolia and Wydick (2011) find that actions such as parental praise designed to foster an increase in self-esteem result in academic achievement in university undergraduates above what natural ability would dictate.…”

Hard and soft choices? Subject selection by schools and students

“…We use several indicators of socioeconomic status. These comprised four dummy variables: force on children's educational outcomes primarily through parental nurturing rather than through any direct material rewards, see Darolia and Wydick (2011). Furthermore, according…”