Locus of control and its intergenerational implications forearly childhood skill formation

Warn Nuarpear Lekfuangfu (), Nattavudh Powdthavee, Nele Warrinnier and Francesca Cornaglia

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

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.

Keywords: locus of control; parental investment; human capital accumulation; early skill formation; ALSPAC (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I31 J01 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017-04-27
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-ltv and nep-neu
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Published in The Economic Journal, 27, April, 2017, 128(608), pp. 298-329. ISSN: 0013-0133

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Related works:
Journal Article: Locus of Control and its Intergenerational Implications for Early Childhood Skill Formation (2018)
Working Paper: Locus of Control and Its Intergenerational Implications for Early Childhood Skill Formation (2016)
Working Paper: Locus of Control and Its Intergenerational Implications for Early Childhood Skill Formation (2014)
Working Paper: Locus of control and its intergenerational implications for early childhood skill formation (2014)
Working Paper: Locus of Control and Its Intergenerational Implications for Early Childhood Skill Formation (2014)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:67366

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