Abstract
The economic literature has recently documented a significant correlation between the preferences and good financial management practices of parents and children, hypothesizing an intergenerational transmission mediated by parenting styles. At the same time, experimental literature has shown that parents are able to 'learn' 'positive' parenting styles (Del Boca, Pronzato, and Schiavon 2021).
Coda Moscarola, Del Boca, and Paladino (2024), using sample data, highlight a strong correlation in patience and saving propensity between parents and adolescent children (14-20 years old) in Italy. The correlation in patience (and impatience) levels is more marked in parents who adopt a sharing attitude, involving their children in household financial decisions, and is particularly evident in children under 18, in families with an above-median socioeconomic level, and in daughters. However, only 24% of parents in the sample adopt this attitude, and in the presence of impatient parents, this is actually a transmission of preferences with a counterproductive effect for the children.
The study that is the subject of this proposal includes a financial education treatment aimed at parents to help them acquire positive skills and preferences to transmit to their children. It therefore analyzes educational styles in the context of family finance, examines their specificities, and includes a randomized controlled experiment to verify whether effective educational styles for increasing the intergenerational transmission of preferences and skills useful for good money management can be taught to parents. The focus is on parents of pre-adolescent or adolescent children, when education on money management and spending autonomy usually begins.