The Power of the Family

Alberto Alesina and Paola Giuliano

No 13051, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: The structure of family relationships influences economic behavior and attitudes. We define our measure of family ties using individual responses from the World Value Survey regarding the role of the family and the love and respect that children need to have for their parents for over 70 countries. We show that strong family ties imply more reliance on the family as an economic unit which provides goods and services and less on the market and on the government for social insurance. With strong family ties home production is higher, labor force participation of women and youngsters, and geographical mobility, lower. Families are larger (higher fertility and higher family size) with strong family ties, which is consistent with the idea of the family as an important economic unit. We present evidence on cross country regressions. To assess causality we look at the behavior of second generation immigrants in the US and we employ a variable based on the grammatical rule of pronoun drop as an instrument for family ties. Our results overall indicate a significant influence of the strength of family ties on economic outcomes.

JEL-codes: H20 J01 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hap, nep-mig, nep-pbe and nep-soc
Note: LS PE POL
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (114)

Published as Alberto Alesina & Paola Giuliano, 2010. "The power of the family," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 15(2), pages 93-125, June.

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Journal Article: The power of the family (2010)
Working Paper: The Power of the Family (2007)
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