Parental Guidance and Supervised Learning

We propose a simple theoretical model of supervised learning that is potentially useful to interpret a number of empirical phenomena relevant to the nature-nurture debate. The model captures a basic trade-off between sheltering the child from the consequences of his mistakes and allowing him to learn from experience. We characterize the optimal parenting policy and its comparative-statics properties. We then show that key features of the optimal policy can be useful to interpret provocative findings from behavioral genetics. (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.) (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

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