Matthias Doepke

• PhD in Economics
• Professor (Full) at Northwestern University

We study the consequences of unequal parenting on children’s long-term outcomes. Our analysis reveals that parenting style exerts a distinct influence on children’s development, separate from socio-economic factors such as education and race. We contend that parenting styles adapt to the evolving environment in which children are raised. Although c...

Two centuries ago, in most countries around the world, women were unable to vote, had no say over their own children or property, and could not obtain a divorce. Women have gradually gained rights in many areas of life, and this legal expansion has been closely intertwined with economic development. We aim to understand the drivers behind these ref...

In many high-income economies, the COVID-19 recession has resulted in unprecedented declines in women's employment. We examine how the forces that underlie this observation play out in developing countries. A force affecting high- and low-income countries alike is increased childcare needs during school closures. In Nigeria, mothers of school-age c...

This chapter provides new evidence on educational inequality and reviews the literature on the causes and consequences of unequal education. We document large achievement gaps between children from different socio-economic backgrounds, show how patterns of educational inequality vary across countries, time, and generations, and establish a link bet...

What are the effects of school closures during the Covid-19 pandemic on children’s education? Online education is an imperfect substitute for in-person learning, particularly for children from low-income families. Peer effects also change: schools allow children from different socio-economic backgrounds to mix together, and this effect is lost when...

A long-standing challenge for welfare economics is to develop welfare criteria that can be applied to allocations with different population levels. Such a criterion is essential to resolve the optimal population problem, i.e., the tradeoff between population size and the welfare of each person alive. A welfare criterion that speaks to this issue in...

Empirical evidence suggests that money in the hands of mothers (as opposed to fathers) increases expenditures on children. Does this imply that targeting transfers to women promotes economic development? Not necessarily. We consider a noncooperative model of the household where a gender wage gap leads to endogenous household specialization. As a re...

It takes a woman and a man to make a baby. This fact suggests that for a birth to take place, the parents should first agree on wanting a child. Using newly available data on fertility preferences and outcomes, we show that indeed, babies are likely to arrive only if both parents desire one. In addition, there are many couples who disagree on havin...

Parenting decisions are among the most consequential choices that people make throughout their lives. Starting with the work of pioneers such as Gary Becker, economists have used the tool set of their discipline to understand what parents do and how parents’ actions affect their children. In recent years, the literature on parenting within economic...

Selon l’analyse économique du rôle des parents dans l’éducation des enfants, plus les inégalités de revenu sont élevées dans un pays, plus les parents essayeront de pousser leurs enfants à devenir des champions. Cela explique pourquoi les parents sont très impliqués dans la vie de leurs enfants en Chine alors que les parents sont bien plus détendus...

In this sexcerpt from their book, Love, Money, and Parenting: How Economics Explains the Way We Raise Our Kids, Matthias Doepke and Fabrizio Zilibotti discuss the phenomenon of helicopter parenting, in which parents spend more time monitoring their kids’ activities. They present empirical evidence for a rise in parental involvement and suggest that...

Parenting decisions are among the most consequential choices people make throughout their lives. Starting with the work of pioneers such as Gary Becker, economists have used the toolset of their discipline to understand what parents do and how parents’ actions affect their children. In recent years, the literature on parenting within economics has...

Dans ce numéro de Regards économiques, nous étudions comment la qualité de l’éducation publique est affectée par la présence d’écoles privées fréquentées par les classes sociales supérieures. La nature du système politique qui décide du financement public est cruciale à cet égard. Un vaste secteur éducatif privé peut être bénéfique lorsque le systè...

Dans ce numéro de Regards économiques, nous étudions comment la qualité de l’éducation publique est affectée par la présence d’écoles privées fréquentées par les classes sociales supérieures. La nature du système politique qui décide du financement public est cruciale à cet égard. Un vaste secteur éducatif privé peut être bénéfique lorsque le systè...

We document evidence on preferences for childbearing in developing countries. Across countries, men usually desire larger families than women do. Within countries, we find wide dispersion in spouses' desired fertility: there are many couples whose ideal family size differs by five children or more. This disagreement between spouses suggests that th...

In the centuries leading up to the Industrial Revolution, Western Europe gradually pulled ahead of other world regions in terms of technological creativity, population growth, and income per capita. We argue that superior institutions for the creation and dissemination of productive knowledge help explain the European advantage. We build a model of...

This chapter analyzes the implications of modeling fertility choices as outcomes of intrahousehold conflict and bargaining. It argues for a reformulation of fertility theories that are embedded in more realistic theories of household formation and joint decision making within the household. Empirical evidence suggests that disagreement regarding fe...

We develop a theory that rationalizes the use of a dominant unit of account in an economy. Agents enter into non-contingent contracts with a variety of business partners. Trade unfolds sequentially in credit chains and is subject to random matching. By using a dominant unit of account, agents can lower their exposure to relative price risk, avoid c...

We develop a theory of parent-child relations that rationalizes the choice between alternative parenting styles (as set out in Baumrind, 1967). Parents maximize an objective function that combines Beckerian altruism and paternalism towards children. They can affect their children's choices via two channels: either by influencing children's preferen...

Much of macroeconomics is concerned with the allocation of physical capital, human capital, and labor over time and across people. The decisions on savings, education, and labor supply that generate these variables are made within families. Yet the family (and decision making in families) is typically ignored in macroeconomic models. In this chapte...

Before Gary Becker, fertility choice was widely considered to be outside the realm of economic analysis. Apart from intellectual tradition, one reason for this was that the data on fertility did not immediately suggest an economic mechanism. In industrialized countries, fertility had declined strongly over time, even though family incomes were risi...

We discuss the two-way link between culture and economic growth. We present a model of endogenous technical change where growth is driven by the innovative activity of entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurship is risky and requires investments that affect the steepness of the lifetime consumption profile. As a consequence, the occupational choice of entrepre...

Since time immemorial, parents have struggled with the question of how best to raise their children. This column argues that the choice of parenting style is driven by incentives. Parents weigh the expected costs and benefits of implementing a certain parenting style. The popularity of the authoritarian style is declining because the economic retur...

We develop a theory of intergenerational transmission of preferences that rationalizes the choice between alternative parenting styles (as set out in Baumrind1967). ParentsmaximizeanobjectivefunctionthatcombinesBeckerian altruism and paternalism towards children. They can affect their children’s choices via two channels: either by influencing child...

Child labor is often condemned as a form of exploitation. I explore how the notion of exploitation, as used in everyday language, can be made precise in economic models of child labor. Exploitation is defined relative to a specific social welfare function. I first show that under the standard dynastic social welfare function, which is commonly appl...

We construct a theory of intergenerational preference transmission that rationalizes the choice between alternative parenting styles (related to Baumrind 1967). Parents maximize an objective function that combines Beckerian and paternalistic altruism towards children. They can affect their children’s choices via two channels: either by influencing...

Women's rights and economic development are highly correlated. Today, the discrepancy between the legal rights of women and men is much larger in developing compared to developed countries. Historically, even in countries that are now rich women had few rights before economic development took off. Is development the cause of expanding women's right...

Empirical evidence suggests that money in the hands of mothers (as opposed to their husbands) benefits children. Does this observation imply that targeting transfers to women is good economic policy? We develop a series of noncooperative family bargaining models to understand what kind of frictions can give rise to the observed empirical relationsh...

Viewed on a historical timescale, economic growth in the world economy is characterized by a long phase of stagnation in living standards, followed in many, but not all, countries by a growth take-off, that is, a transition to steady and sustained economic growth.

The nineteenth century witnessed dramatic improvements in the legal rights of married women. Given that they took place long before women gained the right to vote, these changes amounted to a voluntary renunciation of power by men. In this paper, we investigate men's incentives for sharing power with women. In our model, women's legal rights set th...

We develop a theory that gives rise to an endogenous unit of account. Agents enter into non-contingent contracts with a variety of business part-ners. Trade unfolds sequentially and is subject to random matching. By using a unified unit of account, agents can lower their exposure to relative price risk, avoid costly default, and create more total s...

In recent years, a number of governments and consumer groups in rich countries have tried to discourage the use of child labor in poor countries through measures such as product boycotts and the imposition of international labor standards. The purported objective of such measures is to reduce the incidence of child labor in developing countries and...

Through actions like product boycotts or imposing international labour standards, governments and consumer groups in rich countries put pressure on poor countries to discourage the use of child labour. But the child-labour problem in developing countries shows no sign of abating. Our research suggests that international activism may be partially to...

Child labor is a persistent phenomenon in many developing countries. In recent years, support has been growing among rich-country governments and consumer groups for the use of trade policies, such as product boycotts and the imposition of international labor standards, to reduce child labor in poor countries. In this paper, we discuss research on...

Since the mid-1980s, growth theorists have increasingly focused on human capital as a source of long-run economic growth. Recently, however, a number of studies have documented that the social returns of human-capital investment are fairly small, implying that the contribution of human capital to economic growth is smaller than previously thought....

The nineteenth century witnessed dramatic improvements in the legal rights of married women. Given that these changes took place long before women gained the right to vote, they amounted to a voluntary renouncement of power by men. In this paper, we investigate men’s incentives for sharing power with women. In our model, women’s legal rights set th...

Seit Mitte der achtziger Jahre hat die neue Wachstumstheorie verstärkt Aufmerksamkeit auf Humankapital als eine Quelle des Wirtschaftswachstums gelenkt. Neuere empirische Ergebnisse weisen allerdings darauf hin, dass Bildungsinvestitionen nur geringe soziale Externalitäten erzeugen und dass der direkte Beitrag des Humankapitals zum Wirtschaftswachs...

The British Industrial Revolution triggered a socioeconomic transformation whereby the landowning aristocracy was replaced by industrial capitalists rising from the middle classes as the economically dominant group. We propose a theory of preference formation under financial market imperfections that can account for this pattern. Parents shape thei...

Since the mid-1980s, growth theorists have increasingly focused on human capital as a source of long-run economic growth. Recently, however, a number of studies have documented that the social returns of human-capital investment are fairly small, implying that the contribution of human capital to economic growth is smaller than previously thought....

Since the mid-1980s, growth theorists have increasingly focused on human capital as a source of long-run economic growth. Recently, however, a number of studies have documented that the social returns of human-capital investment are fairly small, implying that the contribution of human capital to economic growth is smaller than previously thought....

Following a phase of near-constant living standards lasting from Stone Age until the onset of the Industrial Revolution, a large number of countries have experienced growth takeoffs, in which stagnation gives way to sustained economic growth. What causes some countries to enter a growth takeoff while others remain poor? We discuss three mechanisms...

Standard real business cycle models must rely on total factor productivity (TFP) shocks to explain the observed comovement of consumption, investment, and hours worked. This paper shows that a neoclassical model consistent with observed heterogeneity in labor supply and consumption can generate comovement in the absence of TFP shocks. Intertemporal...

The British Industrial Revolution triggered a reversal in the social order whereby the landed elite was replaced by industrial capitalists rising from the middle classes as the economically dominant group. Many observers have linked this transformation to the contrast in values between a hard-working and thrifty middle class and an upper class imbu...

How is the quality of public education affected by the presence of private schools for the rich? Theory and evidence suggest that the link depends crucially on the political system. We develop a theory that integrates private education and fertility decisions with voting on public schooling expenditures. We find that the presence of a large private...

Matthias Doepke is Associate Professor of Economics at UCLA. He is interested in the economic growth and development, demographic change, political economics, and monetary economics.

The past century has witnessed major changes in the economic choices of American women. Over the long term, there has been a marked trend towards lower fertility and higher female labor force participation. However, change did not occur in a uniform fashion: during the post-war Baby Boom, fertility rates increased substantially, until the long-term...

The British Industrial Revolution triggered a reversal in the social order of society whereby the landed elite was replaced by industrial capitalists rising from the middle classes as the economically dominant group. Many observers have linked this transformation to the contrast in values between a hard-working and frugal middle class and an upper...

We argue that one major cause of the U.S. post-war baby boom was the rise in female labour supply during World War II. We develop a quantitative dynamic general equilibrium model with endogenous fertility and female labour force participation decisions. We use the model to assess the impact of the war on female labour supply and fertility in the de...

The study estimates an empirical model of return intentions using a dataset compiled from an internet survey of Turkish professionals residing abroad. In the migration literature, wage differentials are often cited as an important factor explaining skilled migration. The findings of our study suggest, however, that non-pecuniary factors, such as th...

1 Overview This appendix describes a data set of U.S. nominal positions assembled for our paper "In-flation and the Redistribution of Nominal Wealth." We construct expected future nominal payment streams for different sectors of the U.S. economy, as well as age and wealth groups of households. Our sectoral data is based on the Flow of Funds Account...

We model the decision problem of a parent who chooses an occupation and teaches patience to her children. The two choices are linked by a strategic complementarity: patient individuals choose occupations with a steep income profile; a steep income profile, in turn, leads to a strong incentive to invest in patience. In equilibrium, society becomes s...

This paper shows that a zero-sum redistribution of wealth within a country can have persistent aggregate effects. Motivated by the caseof an unanticipated inflation episode, we consider redistribution shocks that shift resources from old to young households. Aggregate effects arise because there are asymmetries in the reaction of winners and losers...

This study quantitatively assesses the effects of inflation through changes in the value of nominal assets. It documents nominal asset positions in the United States across sectors and groups of households and estimates the wealth redistribution caused by a moderate inflation episode. The main losers from inflation are rich, old households, the maj...

The paper focuses on satisfaction with income and proposes a utility model built on two value systems, the `Ego' system - described as one own income assessment relatively to one own past and future income - and the `Alter' system - described as one own income assessment relatively to a reference group. We show how the union of these two value syst...

This paper considers the revaluation of nominal wealth as a channel for aggregate and welfare effects of inflation. In a calibrated OLG model, an inflation episode is viewed as an unanticipated shock to the wealth distribution that hurts old lenders and helps young borrowers. While the redistribution shock is zero-sum, households respond asymmetric...

This paper provides a quantitative assessment of the effects of inflation through changes in the value of nominal assets. We document nominal positions in the US across sectors as well as different groups of households, and estimate the redistribution brought about by a moderate inflation episode. Redistribution takes the form of 'ends-against-the-...

A lo largo de la historia econ�mica moderna, los salarios reales han sido un buen indicador del nivel de vida material de la clase trabajadora. Este documento presenta series de salarios reales para diferentes sectores y �pocas en Colombia. Apoy�ndonos en datos compilados por varios autores, nuestra principal conclusi�n es que a lo largo de los �lt...

We model the decision problem of a parent who chooses an occupation and invests in the patience of her children. The two choices complement each other: patient individuals choose occupations with a steep income profile; a steep income profile, in turn, leads to a strong incentive to invest in patience. In equilibrium, society becomes stratified alo...

One of the key social transformations that accompanied the British Industrial Revolution was the economic decline of the aristocracy. Standard theories of wealth inequality cannot explain why the aristocrats, in spite of their superior wealth and education, failed to be the main protagonists and beneficiaries of industrialization. We discuss recent...

The empirical literature on monetary policy shocks documents that contractionary shocks are followed by a persistent rise in interest rates and a persistent fall in output. Standard monetary business cycle models can account for the initial effects of monetary shocks, but have difficulty generating persistence. In this paper, I examine whether fric...

We develop a positive theory of the adoption of child labor laws. Workers who compete with children in the labor market support a child labor ban, unless their own working children provide a large fraction of family income. Fertility decisions lock agents into specific political preferences, and multiple steady states can arise. The introduction of...

Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips stock price has been predicted using the difference between core and headline CPI in the United States. Linear trends in the CPI difference allow accurate prediction of the prices at a five to ten-year horizon.

In every developed country, the economic transition from pre-industrial stagnation to modern growth was accompanied by a demographic transition from high to low fertility. Even though the overall pattern is repeated, there are large cross-country variations in the timing and speed of the demographic transition. What accounts for falling fertility d...

This paper analyzes the effects of inflation through changes in the value of nominal assets. Nominal positions in the U.S. economy are documented for dif-ferent sectors as well as age and wealth groups of households. The redistribution brought about by a moderate inflation episode is estimated and a calibrated OLG model is used to assess the long-t...

This paper analyzes the effects of inflation through changes in the value of nominal assets. Nominal positions in the U.S. economy are documented for dif-ferent sectors as well as age and wealth groups of households. The redistribution brought about by a switch from a low inflation regime to a moderate inflation regime is estimated under various as...

Both empirical and theoretical evidence suggests that preference heterogeneity is a necessary feature of any model that is able to account for observed heterogeneity in wealth and lifetime income and consumption profiles. Why do tastes differ across people? We propose a framework in which people can invest in their own (or their children's) patienc...

We present a model in which the gender gap in wages displays non-monotonic dynamics of the type observed in the US during the twentieth century. We show that the dynamics of the gender gap depend on the number of women that work at home in the early stage of their life and join the labor force late in life with low skills and little labor market ex...

In most democracies, the majority of education expenditures is financed by the government. In non-democracies, we observe a wide variation in the mix of public and private funding of education. In addition, countries with high inequality tend to rely more heavily on private schooling. We develop a theory which integrates private decision on educati...

In our paper "Dynamic Mechanism Design with Hidden Income and Hidden Ac-tions," we develop general recursive methods to solve for optimal contracts in dy-namic principal-agent models with hidden income and hidden actions. This appendix provides the proofs which are omitted from the main paper, a detailed derivation of Program 2, and a proof of the...

We develop a positive theory of the adoption of child-labour regulation, based on two key mechanisms. First, parental decisions on family size interact with their preferences for child-labour regulation. Second, the supply of child labour affects skilled and unskilled wages. If policies are endogenous, multiple steady-states with different child-la...

We develop a new theoretical link between inequality and growth. In our model, fertility and education decisions are interdependent. Poor parents decide to have many children and invest little in education. A mean-preserving spread in the income distribution increases the fertility differential between the rich and the poor, which implies that more...

We assess the merits of different education systems in a framework that accounts for the joint decision problem of parents regarding fertility and education. Specifically, we compare the implications of a public and a private schooing regime for economic growth and inequality; We find that private schooling leads to higher growth when there is litt...

In our paper "Dynamic Mechanism Design with Hidden Income and Hidden Actions," we develop general recursive methods to solve for optimal contracts in dynamic principal-agent models with hidden income and hidden actions. This appendix provides the detailed derivations of all recursive formulations presented in the paper, as well as proofs for all pr...

We assess the merits of different education systems in a framework that accounts for the joint decision problem of parents regarding fertility and education. Specifically, we compare the implications of a public and a private schooling regime for economic growth and inequality. We find that private schooling leads to higher growth when there is lit...

We develop general recursive methods to solve for optimal contracts in dynamic principal-agent environments with hidden states and hidden actions. Starting from a general mechanism with arbitrary communication, randomization, full history dependence, and without restrictions on preferences or technology, we show that the optimal contract can be imp...