Economic theory and empirical evidence establish that economic preferences predict behavior and life outcomes for children, adolescents, and adults. In this paper, we use novel data on 4,282 siblings aged 6 to 16 that combine incentivized measures of time, risk, and social preferences with...

We study whether and how parents interfere paternalistically in their children's intertemporal decision-making. Based on experiments with over 2,000 members of 610 families, we find that parents anticipate their children's present bias and aim to mitigate it. Using a novel method to measure...

Identifying sensitive periods in which the returns to investments into skills are especially high is challenging, but crucial for an effective and efficient timing of parental or public investments aimed at fostering children's skills. We can detect sensitive periods with a novel design by...

We study the relationship between parenting style and a broad range of children's skills and outcomes. Based on survey and experimental data from 5,580 children and their parents, we find that children exposed to positive parenting have higher IQs, are more altruistic, open to new experiences,...