2012-09-22 papers

on Neuroeconomics

Issue of 2012‒09‒22
two papers chosen by

Self investments of adolescents and their cognitive development By D. Del Boca; C. Monfardini; C. Nicoletti
The Impact of Social Activities on Cognitive Ageing: Evidence from Eleven European Countries By Dimitrios Christelis; Loreti I. Dobrescu

Self investments of adolescents and their cognitive development

By:	D. Del Boca; C. Monfardini; C. Nicoletti
Abstract:	While a large literature has focused on the impact of parental investments on child cognitive development, very little is known about the role of child's own investments. Information on how children invest their time separately from parents is probably little informative for babies and toddlers, but it becomes more and more important in later stages of life, such as adolescence, when children start to take decisions independently. By using the Child Development Supplement of the PSID (Panel Study of Income Dynamics), we model the production of cognitive ability of adolescents and extend the set of inputs to include the child's own time investments. Looking at investments during adolescence, we find that child's investments matter more than mother's investments. On the contrary, looking at investments during childhood, it is the mother's investments that are more important. Our results are obtained accounting for potential unobserved child's and family's endowments and are robust across several specifications and samples, e.g. considering and not considering father's investments and non-intact families.
JEL:	J13 D1
Date:	2012–09
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bol:bodewp:wp848&r=neu

The Impact of Social Activities on Cognitive Ageing: Evidence from Eleven European Countries

By:	Dimitrios Christelis (CSEF and CFS); Loreti I. Dobrescu (University of New South Wales)
Abstract:	Using micro data from eleven European countries, we investigate the impact of being socially active on cognition in older age. Cognitive abilities are measured through scores on numeracy, fluency and recall tests. We address the endogeneity of social activities through panel data and instrumental variable methods. We find that social activities have an important positive effect on cognition, with the results varying by gender. Fluency is positively affected only in females, while numeracy only in males. Finally, recall is affected in both sexes. We also show that social activities, through their effect on cognition, influence positively households’ economic welfare.
Keywords:	Social Activities, Ageing, SHARE, Panel Data
JEL:	I10 J14 C23
Date:	2012–09–05
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sef:csefwp:320&r=neu

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