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Encyclopedia of Law and Economics pp 202–210Cite as

Child Maltreatment, The Economic Determinants of

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Abstract

This entry examines the economic determinants of child maltreatment. We first discuss potential mechanisms through which economic factors, including income, employment, aggregate economic conditions, and welfare receipt, might have causal effects on the rates of child abuse and neglect. We then outline the main challenges faced by researchers attempting to identify these causal effects, emphasizing the importance of data limitations and potential confounding factors at both the individual and aggregate levels. We describe two approaches used in the existing literature to address these challenges – the use of experimental variation to identify the effects of changes in family income on individual likelihood of maltreatment and the use of area studies to identify the effects of changes in local economic conditions on aggregate rates of maltreatment.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA

    Jason M. Lindo

  2. NBER, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Jason M. Lindo

  3. IZA, Bonn, Germany

    Jason M. Lindo

  4. The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA

    Jessamyn Schaller

Authors
  1. Jason M. Lindo
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  2. Jessamyn Schaller
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jason M. Lindo .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. MRE and University of Montpellier, Montpellier, France

    Alain Marciano

  2. Faculté d’Economie, Université de Montpellier and LAMETA-UMR CNRS, Montpellier, France

    Alain Marciano

  3. DiGSPES, University of Eastern Piedmont, Alessandria, Italy

    Giovanni Battista Ramello

  4. IEL, Torino, Italy

    Giovanni Battista Ramello

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Lindo, J.M., Schaller, J. (2019). Child Maltreatment, The Economic Determinants of. In: Marciano, A., Ramello, G.B. (eds) Encyclopedia of Law and Economics. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7753-2_583

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