Child support and non-resident fathers’ contact with their children

Abstract

The paper presents a model of a non-resident father’s child support and contact with his child, which combines the public good treatment of “child quality” with “trade” in father-child contact time in a setting of non-cooperative interaction. It predicts that father’s income and mother’s non-labour income should have exactly the same effect on the frequency of father-child contact if he chooses to make lump sum payments to the mother. If he does not or there is a binding child support payment order, they have effects opposite in direction. A higher binding support order reduces father-child contact but may well raise “child quality”.