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| CSWG January 2008 Analysis by David Spring | Focuses primarily on determining the cost of one child as a percentage of total intact family spending. |
| CSWG February 2008 Addendum by David Spring | Focused primarily on the inaccuracy of the “per capita assumption” which claims that children cost as much as adults. |
| CSWG March 2008 Addendum by David Spring | Focuses primarily on the process of scientific decision making and the differences between this method of making decisions and less formal decision making methods. Scientific decision making is then used to address the issue of residential credits. |
| CSWG April 2008 Addendum by David Spring | Details Analysis of Betson plan for Residential credit - or why he feels they should not be given. Analysis demonstrates why they absolutely should be given to NCP's to protect the interest of the children during NCP residential time. |
| McCaleb, T.S., Macpherson, D.A., & Norrbin, S.C., (2004) | Review and Update of Florida’s Child Support Guidelines, Report to the Florida State Legislature, Florida State University Department of Economics, Tallahassee, Florida. The Florida State authors compared their marginal Engel result to the Betson-Per Capita Engel result using the same data set and found that merely changing from their marginal method to Betson’s per capita method raised the child cost estimate dramatically with no change in the underlying data. Regarding the Betson per capita adjustment, the Florida State authors noted on page 34: Following Espenshade, (the Florida State study) uses the log of total family expenditures and its square and the log of family size to control for total family spending and economies of scale. The Betson model uses the log of per capita family expenditures and its square and the log of family size to control for total family spending and economies of scale. There does not appear to be any substantive economic rationale for choosing one of these specifications over the other, but this difference in specification seems to be driving the differences in estimates. |
| Rogers, R.M., (2007) Cost Shares Website, www.guidelineeconomics.com. | This website is loaded with studies refuting Dr. Betson’s assumptions and methods. Most relevant to the March Addendum topic of residential credits is Rogers, R.M., (2006) A Brief Economic Critique of North Carolina’s Child Support Guidelines, pages 33-38). Thus, this article has been posted in the Child Support Research library now available at WashingtonSharedParenting.com. |
| Lazear E. P. & Michael, R.T. (1988) Allocation of Income within the Household, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. | Unfortunately, this book does not exist as a PDF. I obtained a copy of the book through the University of Washington library and quoted the book exactly in the February Addendum. The Lazear result of 16% is also correctly quoted on pages 484 – 485 of the Bassi and Barnow (1993) study which is available as a PDF and has been posted as part of the Child Support “Source Documents” Reading library. Betson misquoted the result as being 19% on page 194 of his 1990 study. |
| Deaton, A. & Muellbaur, J. (1986) On Measuring Child Costs: With Application to Poor Counties, Journal of Political Economy, 94 (4) 720 – 44. | This study concluded that a Deaton Rothbarth estimate of 11% of total family spending was a “lower bound.” Betson later turned this result on its head by claiming that his Betson Rothbarth per capita result of 25% was a lower bound. The Deaton article is very short (only 24 pages). It is therefore pretty easy to read and decide for yourself what Deaton actual meant. |
| Bassi, L. J. & Barnow, B.S., (1993). Expenditures on children and child support guidelines, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 12 (3) 478-497. | This study concluded that a Lazear & Michael marginal Rothbarth estimate of 16% of total family spending was a “lower bounds.” Subtracting 3% for child care and health care yields an Economic Table lower bounds of 13%. Betson and PSI have since turned this result on its head by claiming that the Betson Rothbarth per capita estimate of 25% was a “lower bounds.” See Bassi and Barnow, pages 484-485. |
| Pearce, D. (2006) Self Sufficiency Standard for Washington State, Center for Women’s Welfare, School of Social Work , University of Washington. | This study is a bottom up county by county comparison of child costs in Washington State. This study was one of the six sources selected as the basis of determining that one child is 20% of total family spending (supporting an Economic Table “upper bounds” of 15%). (note that the current Economic Table Upper bounds is about 20% and Betson proposes to raise the Lower Bounds to 25% and the Upper Bounds to 30%). |
| Reyes-Morales, S.E. (2003) Characteristics of Complete and Intermittent Responders in the Consumer Expenditure Quarterly Interview Survey, Consumer Expenditure Survey Anthology, 25-29. | This study confirmed that incomplete responders to the CEX have different characteristics from complete responders. This study also confirmed that the CEX contacts more than 20,000 families every year. Thus, Dr. Betson’s 6 year sample referred to in the 2006 Oregon PSI report was over 120,000 family units from which Betson eliminated all but 11,000 extremely stable and wealthy families on which he based his results. |
| Fabricius and Braver (2003) Non-Child Support Expenditures on Children by Non-residential Divorced Fathers, Family Court Review, Vol. 41 | This study confirmed that child costs on a per day basis in the lower time parent’s house are similar to or greater than child costs per day in higher time parents house. |
| Henman, P. and Mitchell, K., (2001) Estimating the Costs of Contact for non-residential parents: A budget standards approach, Journal of Social Policy, 30 (3) 495–520 | This study also confirmed that child costs on a per day basis in the lower time parents house are similar to or greater than per day child costs in higher time parents house. |
Kuhn, R. & Guidubaldi, (1997) “Child Custody Policies and Divorce Rates in the United States" Paper presented at teh 11th National Conference of the Children's Rights Council, Washington, D.C. | This study confirmed that child custody policies, and by extension child support policies, have a direct effect on divorce rates. Thus, policies which favor one parent over the other are harmful to children in that such policies encourage divorces. |
| Bradshaw, J. & Skinner, C. (2000) Child Support: The British Fiasco, IRP Focus, 21 (1) 80-86. | This study was quoted extensively in the February 2008 Addendum. It offers solutions that are highly applicable to child support problems in the US. |
| Baskerville, S. (2008) From Welfare State to Police State, The Independent Review, 12 (3) 401-422. | This article described numerous problems with child support policies in the US. |
| Wilson, K.C., (2003) The Multiple Scandals of Child Support, Second Edition, Richmond, VA: Harbinger Press. | This article also described numerous problems with child support policies in the US. |
CSWG Reference Library