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We analyse whether traditional sharing norms within kinship networks affect education decisions of poor black households in KwaZulu-Natal. Theory predicts that the size of the kinship network ambiguously impacts on the incentive to invest in human capital (due to opposing ‘empathy’ and ‘free-rider’ effects). Our empirical analysis, based on a range of different estimators, suggests the latter effect dominates: forced solidarity within the network discourages investments in human capital.
Falco et al. (Wed,) studied this question.