This essay uses the example of child support theory and Jamaican childsupport practices to argue that greater attention to local contexts and meaning systems can improve the explanatory and predictive power of economic models and their usefulness to policy-makers. The essay summarizes how...

Nonresident parents pay a small proportion of the total pecuniary costs of raising children in Jamaica. This paper uses household survey data to identify conditions that promote cash support by absent parents. The paper highlights several ways in which gender influences Jamaican child support...