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Author: Brown, Meta
Resulting in 3 citations.
1. Brown, Meta
Flinn, Christopher J.
Investment in Child Quality Over Marital States
IRP Discussion Paper No. DP 1320-07, Institute for Research on Poverty, University of Wisconsin, January 2007.
Also: http://www.irp.wisc.edu/publications/dps/pdfs/dp132007.pdf
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Institute for Research on Poverty (IRP), University of Wisconsin - Madison
Keyword(s): Divorce; Family Income; Fathers, Involvement; Marital Stability; Marriage; Parental Marital Status; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading)

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Policies governing divorce and parenting, such as child support orders and enforcement, child custody regulations, and marital dissolution requirements, can have a large impact on the welfare of parents and children. Recent research has produced evidence on the responses of divorce rates to unilateral divorce laws and child support enforcement. In this paper the authors argue that in order to assess the child welfare impact of family policies, one must consider their influence on parents' investments in their children as well as the stability of the marginal marriage. Further, the authors expect that changes in the regulatory environment induce changes in the distribution of resources within both intact and divided families. The authors develop a continuous time model of parents' marital status choices and investments in children, with the main goal being the determination of how policies toward divorce influence outcomes for children. Estimates are derived for model parameters of interest using the method of simulated moments, and simulations based on the model explore the effects of changes in custody allocations and child support standards on outcomes for children of married and divorced parents. We find that, while small changes in children's academic attainment are induced by significant shifts in custody and support, the major effects of these policies in both intact and divided households are on the distribution of welfare between parents. In addition, children's attainments are not necessarily best served by the divorce-minimizing policy.
Bibliography Citation
Brown, Meta and Christopher J. Flinn. "Investment in Child Quality Over Marital States." IRP Discussion Paper No. DP 1320-07, Institute for Research on Poverty, University of Wisconsin, January 2007.
2. Brown, Meta
Flinn, Christopher Jay
Investment in Child Quality Over Marital States
Working Paper, Department of Economics, University of Wisconsin and Department of Economics, New York University, January 2004.
Also: http://www.nyu.edu/econ/user/flinnc/papers/BrownFlinn0104.pdf
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79
Publisher: Department of Economics, University of Wisconsin - Madison
Keyword(s): Divorce; Family Characteristics; Family Income; Fathers, Involvement; Income; Marital Stability; Marriage; Parental Marital Status; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading)

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Abstract Policies governing divorce and parenting, such as child support enforcement, child custody regulations,and marital dissolution requirements, optimize some combination of parents' and children's welfare. Recent research has produced evidence on the responses of divorce rates to unilateral divorce laws and child support enforcement. We argue that in order to assess the child welfare impact of family policies, one must consider their influence on parents' investments in their children as well as the stability of the marginal marriage. Further, we expect that changes in the regulatory environment induce changes in the distribution of resources within both intact and divided families. This paper presents a continuous time model of parents' marital status choices and investments in children, with the goal of determining how policies toward divorce influence outcomes for children. Preliminary estimates are derived for model parameters of interest, and simulations based on the model explore the effects of changes in standard custody allocations on outcomes for children of married and divorced parents.
Bibliography Citation
Brown, Meta and Christopher Jay Flinn. "Investment in Child Quality Over Marital States." Working Paper, Department of Economics, University of Wisconsin and Department of Economics, New York University, January 2004.
3. Flinn, Christopher Jay
Brown, Meta
Investment in Child Quality over Marital States
Presented: Bilbao, Spain, European Society for Population Economics (ESPE), June 12-15, 2002.
Also: http://www.eco.rug.nl/~espe2002/Book_of_Abstracts.pdf
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY97
Publisher: European Society for Population Economics (ESPE)
Keyword(s): Divorce; Fathers, Involvement; Household Composition; Income; Marriage; Methods/Methodology; Parental Marital Status; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); Test Scores/Test theory/IRT

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Policy governing divorce and parenting, such as child support enforcement, child custody regulations and laws controlling marital dissolution, takes as its objective the optimization of some combination of parents? and children?s welfare. While recent research has produced strong evidence on the effects of such policies as unilateral divorce and child support enforcement on divorce rates, information on the child welfare impact of divorce policies would be of use in evaluating the desirability of stabilizing the marginal marriage. Additionally, we expect that changes in the regulatory environment induce changes in the distribution of resources within intact and divided families. This paper presents a continuous time model of parents? marital status choices and investments in children, with the goal of determining how policies toward divorce influence outcomes for children and the distribution of resources within the family. The model addresses the detrimental effects of both realized and impending divorce on child outcomes that we observe in the NLSY, and simulated data based on the model replicates observed patterns in parents? marital status, parents? child investment behavior and outcomes for children.
Bibliography Citation
Flinn, Christopher Jay and Meta Brown. "Investment in Child Quality over Marital States." Presented: Bilbao, Spain, European Society for Population Economics (ESPE), June 12-15, 2002.