Lunchtime Economics Seminar Series. The Family Multiplier: Understanding Delinquency and Parent-Adolescent Interactions
Published: 11 May 2026
20 May 2026. Professor Kai Liu, University of Cambridge
Professor Kai Liu, University of Cambridge
"The Family Multiplier: Understanding Delinquency and Parent-Adolescent Interactions"
Wednesday, 20 May 2026. 13:00
Room 141ab ASBS
Abstract
Adolescent delinquency is common and an important predictor of later-life outcomes, yet little is known about how parental behaviour interacts with children and their social environment in shaping delinquency. We estimate a strategic equilibrium model of parenting and adolescent delinquency that decomposes the effects of the social environment into a direct technology effect and an endogenous parental feedback effect, whose ratio defines the family multiplier. Parental control strongly reduces delinquency, but parents reduce control when delinquency rises, amplifying peer influences and generating a multiplier of 1.07. Differences in parental inputs offset roughly half the racial delinquency gap, while feedback effects amplify disparities associated with genetic risk tolerance by one-quarter.
Bio
Kai Liu is a Professor of Economics at the University of Cambridge. His research interests are Labour Economics, Public Economics, Applied Microeconomics and Economics of China.
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First published: 11 May 2026