Abstract
This paper extends the previous literature on the intergenerational transmission of human capital by exploiting variation in compulsory schooling reforms across nine European countries over the period 1920–1956. My empirical strategy follows an instrumental variable (IV) approach, instrumenting parental education with years of compulsory schooling. I find some evidence of a causal relationship between parents’ and children’s education. The magnitude of the estimated effect is large: an additional year of parental education raises the child’s education by 0.44 of a year. I also find that maternal schooling is more important than paternal schooling for the academic performance of their offspring. The results are robust to several specification checks.JEL codesI20, J62
Highlights
The notion that there is a positive association between the educational outcomes of the parents and their children is well documented
This paper extends the previous literature on the intergenerational transmission of human capital by exploiting variation in compulsory schooling reforms across nine European countries over the period 1920–1956
The results reported in Panel D are consistent with my baseline model: I find evidence of a causal impact, larger in magnitude, of parental education and a larger impact of maternal education on children’s schooling
Summary
The notion that there is a positive association between the educational outcomes of the parents and their children is well documented. The primary concern is that intergenerational educational estimates might not adequately account for the correlation between parental schooling and some unobserved, inherited characteristics that might affect the academic achievement of their offspring. Such correlations would imply that the intergenerational transmission of education could be primarily driven by selection rather than reflecting a causal relationship running from a parent’s to a child’s education.
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