Working papers
Intergenerational Transmission of Time Preferences: An Evidence from Rural Thailand
Suparee Boonmanunt, Wasinee Jantorn, Varunee Khruapradit and Weerachart T. Kilenthong,
PIER Discussion Paper, May 6, 2022. link
This study investigates factors associated with child time preferences in rural Thailand using a large and unique data set of more than 700 children with rich background information on child, caregiver, parent, and household characteristics. We find that the caregiver discount factor positively correlates with a child’s ability to delay gratification, regardless of whether the caregiver is a parent. Children’s age and literacy ability are significantly associated with child time preferences, while other variables, e.g., screen time, are not. Interestingly, the older the caregivers, the stronger the relationship between caregiver and child time preferences.
Publications
Child Development, Parental Investments, and School Environment: Evidence from Rural Thailand
Wisuwat Chujan,
Southeast Asian Journal of Economics, Vol.12 (2), August 2024; pp. 61-92. link
This study investigates how child skills, parental investments, and the school environment influence early childhood development in the context of rural Thailand. Using data from the Reducing Inequality through Early Childhood Education (RIECE) program, our findings suggest that a child’s lagged cognitive ability leads to improved language (expressive and receptive) and gross motor skills. Relating to parental investments, time investment is important for fine motor skills, receptive language, and personal-social skills. In contrast, material investment is only significantly linked to improvements in expressive language. Schooling intervention through the RIECE curriculum improved gross motor skills as well as expressive and receptive language skills. Finally, teacher experience led to better fine motor skills, while a higher student teacher ratio improved expressive language skills. Our findings are heterogeneous across child genders.
The Role of Caregiver Time Preferences, Child Behavioral Problems, and Community Risks on Parenting Style
Ahmad Shabir Faizi and Weerachart T. Kilenthong,
Southeast Asian Journal of Economics, Vol.10, No.3, December 2022; pp. 135-162. link
This paper investigates the socioeconomic determinants of parenting style in the context of a developing country using early childhood panel data from rural Thailand. Our key findings are that more patient caregivers tend to be more authoritative than authoritarian, caregivers are more likely to be authoritative than authoritarian when they observed more behavioral problems from their children, and caregivers exhibit more authoritarian than authoritative parenting if they perceived the community to be more dangerous. We also find that families with fewer resources, proxied by wealth, marital status, and parental absence, are more likely to be authoritarian.
Do Parental Absence and Children’s Gender Affect Early Childhood Investment? Evidence from Rural Thailand
Weerachart T. Kilenthong and NGOC TÚ T. ĐINH,
The Singapore Economic Review, Vol. 66, Issue 05, 2021. link
This paper studies how parental absence and children’s gender affect early childhood investment using a new dataset from rural Thailand. We found that relative to boys, girls received more time but less material investment. Relative to children with at least one parent present, children with absent parents received significantly less material investment; however, time investment was not significantly different between the two groups. Based on an economic model of early childhood investment, these results suggest that relative to material investment, time investment is more important for girls than for boys, and for households with absent parents than for households with at least one parent present. The estimation of the elasticity of substitution between time and material investments suggests that both types of investments are surprisingly complementary.
Short-Term Impact of an Early Childhood Education Intervention in Rural Thailand
Wisuwat Chujan and Weerachart T. Kilenthong,
Journal of Human Capital, Vol. 15, Issue 2, 2021. link
This paper evaluates the short-term impact of an early childhood education intervention on child development. The program randomly assigned an additional 19 teachers to coteach using a new curriculum based on the HighScope approach, in 19 out of 50 child care centers in rural Thailand. The main result indicates that the intervention had a positive and significant effect on child development in gross motor and personal and social skills with an effect size of 0.40 standard deviations for the benchmark case.