Intergenerational Transmission Of Human Capital Research Articles

Nepotism vs. intergenerational transmission of human capital in Academia (1088–1800)

We have constructed a comprehensive database that traces the publications of father–son pairs in the premodern academic realm and examined the contribution of inherited human capital versus nepotism to occupational persistence. We find that human capital was strongly transmitted from parents to children and that nepotism declined when the misallocation of talent across professions incurred greater social costs. Specifically, nepotism was less common in fields experiencing rapid changes in the knowledge frontier, such as the sciences and within Protestant institutions. Most notably, nepotism sharply declined during the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment, when departures from meritocracy arguably became both increasingly inefficient and socially intolerable.

Birth Timing and the Intergenerational Transmission of Human Capital

Birth Timing and the Intergenerational Transmission of Human Capital

The Intergenerational Transmission of Human Capital: Evidence from the Golden Age of Upward Mobility

School quality affects upward mobility in educational attainment. This conclusion comes from an analysis of families with coresident teenage children in the 1940 census. We study parents in the bottom quartile of the education distribution and define “upward mobility” as a generational move up the educational ladder to the top three quartiles of the child’s cohort. At the state level, upward mobility is strongly tied to teacher wages. This relationship holds when we narrow our focus to families on adjacent sides of state borders in the South, where state minimum salary laws created sharp teacher-wage differences between otherwise similar counties.

First Palestinian intifada and intergenerational transmission of human capital

This paper attempts to estimate the intergenerational transmission of human capital in Palestine. The main question is whether formal parental education improves their offspring’s cognitive skills and school achievements. I use the instrumental variable method in the estimations to overcome the potential endogeneity of parental education. The main source of variation in parental educational attainment is parents’ exposure to the First Palestinian Intifada (1988–1993) during their middle and high school ages. During the First Palestinian Intifada, many school days were lost due to frequent school closures and other restrictions. Furthermore, many young people preferred to search for low-skill employment in Israel, since it provided them with better wages than the local labour market and hardly required any level of educational attainment. This study employs two outcomes, namely the standardised cognitive test scores and school achievements during the academic year 2012/2013 for students between grade 5 and grade 9 in West Bank schools. Overall, the results support the hypothesis of a human capital spill-over but more so for girls than for boys, where the instrumental variables results are often insignificant because of their large standard errors.

Parental assortative mating and the intergenerational transmission of human capital

We study the contribution of parental educational assortative mating to the intergenerational transmission of educational attainment. We develop an empirical model for educational correlations within the family in which parental educational sorting can translate into intergenerational transmission jointly by both parents, or transmission can originate from each parent independently. Estimating the model using educational attainment from Danish population-based administrative data for over 400,000 families, we find that on average 75 percent of the intergenerational correlation in education is driven by the joint contribution of the parents. We also document a 38 percent decline of assortative mating in education for parents born between the early 1920s and the early 1950s. While the raw correlations also show decreases in father- and mother-specific intergenerational transmissions of educational attainment, our model shows that once we decompose all factors of intergenerational mobility, the share of intergenerational transmission accounted for by parent-specific factors increased from 7 to 27 percent; an increase compensated by a corresponding fall in joint intergenerational transmission from both parents, leaving total intergenerational persistence unchanged. The mechanisms of intergenerational transmission have changed, with an increased importance of one-to-one parent-child relationships.

Economic Persistence Despite Adverse Policies: Evidence from Kyrgyzstan

Abstract We study the long-run persistence of relative economic well-being under adverse government policies using a combination of historical and contemporaneous data from Kyrgyzstan. After controlling for unobservable local effects, the economic well-being of Kyrgyz households in the 2010s correlates with the early twentieth-century average wealth of their tribes. Inequality at the tribe level in the 2010s correlates with wealth inequality in the early twentieth century. The likely channels of persistence are the inter-generational transmission of human capital, relative status, political power and cultural traits. Transmission of material wealth, differences in natural endowments or geographic sorting cannot explain persistence.

Maternal human capital accumulation and children's well-being.

Research examining the intergenerational transmission of human capital is subject to two limitations. First, for the parental generation, most studies focus on formal education but fail to consider vocational training experience, which has more variation than formal educational attainment over the life course. Second, most studies have found consistent conclusions using income and occupation for the children's outcomes but have generated mixed findings regarding health and cognitive ability. This study aims to answer whether mothers' additional vocational training beyond formal education is beneficial to children's health and cognitive ability. Applying fixed-effects regression to the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 and the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth Child and Young Adults datasets, this study finds that mothers' human capital accumulation is positively associated with higher cognitive scores for both boys and girls, but does not significantly predict children's illnesses or behavior problems. These findings bear implications for policy aimed at mitigating the intergenerational cycles of disadvantages.

Parental Assortative Mating and the Intergenerational Transmission of Human Capital

We study the contribution of parental similarity in schooling levels to the intergenerational transmission of educational attainment. We develop an empirical model for educational correlations within the family in which parental sorting can translate into intergenerational transmission, or transmission can originate from each parent independently. Estimating the model using educational attainment from Danish population-based administrative data for over 400,000 families, we find that about 75 percent of the intergenerational correlation in education is driven by the joint contribution of the parents. We also document a sizeable secular decline of parental assortative mating in education, with a corresponding fall in joint intergenerational transmission from both parents; a fall compensated by an increase in parent-specific intergenerational transmission, leaving total intergenerational persistence unchanged. The mechanisms of intergenerational transmission have changed, with an increased importance of one-to-one parent-child relationships.

On the Family Origins of Human Capital Formation: Evidence from Donor Children

We introduce a novel strategy to study the intergenerational transmission of human capital, net of genetic skill transfers. For this purpose, we use unique data on children conceived through sperm and egg donation in IVF treatments in Denmark. Because the assignment of donors is not selective, the intergenerational human capital estimates allow for a causal nurture interpretation. Once we take account of genes, we find that only the education of mothers matters: the association between mother's education and child test scores is significant and large, whereas the association between father's education and child test scores is insignificant and practically zero.

Nepotism vs. Intergenerational Transmission of Human Capital in Academia (1088–1800)

We argue that the waning of nepotism in academia bolstered scientific production in pre-industrial Europe. We build a database of families of scholars (1088–1800), measure their scientific output, and develop a general method to disentangle nepotism from inherited human capital—two determinants of occupational persistence. This requires jointly addressing measurement error in human capital proxies and sample selection bias arising from nepotism. Our method exploits multi-generation correlations together with parent-child distributional differences to identify the structural parameters of a first-order Markov process of human capital transmission with nepotism. We find an intergenerational human capital elasticity of 0.59, higher than that suggested by parent-child elasticities, yet lower than multi-generation estimates ignoring nepotism. In early academia, 40 percent of scholars’ sons achieved their position because of nepotism. Nepotism was lower in science than in law and in Protestant than in Catholic institutions, and declined substantially during the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment—two periods of buoyant scientific advancement.

First Palestinian Intifada and Intergenerational Transmission of Human Capital

This paper attempts to estimate the intergenerational transmission of human capital in Palestine. The main question is whether formal parental education improves their offspring’s cognitive skills and school achievements. I use the instrumental variable (IV) method in the estimations to overcome the potential endogeneity of parental education. The main source of variation in parental educational attainment is parents’ exposure to the First Palestinian Intifada (1988–93) during their middle- and high school ages. During the First Palestinian Intifada, many school days were lost due to frequent school closures and other restrictions. Furthermore, many young people preferred to search for low-skill employment in Israel, since it provided them with better wages than the local labor market and hardly required any level of educational attainment. This study employs two outcomes, namely the standardized cognitive test scores and school achievements during the academic year 2012/13 for students between grade 5 and grade 9 in West Bank schools. Overall, the results support the hypothesis of a human capital spillover but more so for girls than for boys, where the IV results are often insignificant because of their large standard errors.

The Impact of Migration Controls on Urban Fiscal Policies and the Intergenerational Transmission of Human Capital in China

Using newly available data, we document that internal migrants do not enjoy the same access to local public goods and services as city residents in China. We estimate a spatial overlapping generations model with heterogeneous households to quantify the impact of the Hukou system on urban fiscal policies and access to educational opportunities. We find that migrants provide large fiscal externalities to all major cities. We show the feasibility of alternative internal migration policies that offer the potential of decreasing the inequality within China while at the same time increasing the overall level of human capital in the economy.

Intergenerational transmission of human capital

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to find the rate of intergenerational transmission of human capital and comparative schooling attainment between lower and higher income families using the labor force survey in Thailand. Design/methodology/approach Instrumental variable (IV) approach has been used in this paper. The author proposed an alternative instrument for parental education to identify the rate of transmission, which is the parents’ cohorts’ mean schooling in their respective provinces. Findings This paper found that the rate of transmission of human capital from father is higher than that from mother in Thailand. For both, the rate of transmission in Thailand is higher than that in the developed countries. In addition, it is found that children from lower income families are getting lesser education than those from higher income families in Thailand. Research limitations/implications This paper is used as an alternative instrument that could solve the endogeneity problem in the literature of intergenerational transmission of human capital. Practical implications The results of rate of transmission can help to make educational policies in countries like Thailand. It also could help the policymakers to evaluate and redesign the student loan scheme (SLS) in Thailand. Originality/value This study is used as an alternative instrument for parental education to identify the rate of transmission in an IV approach. This paper is the first to identify the intergenerational transmission rate in Thailand. In addition, it evaluates Thai SLS in an intergenerational framework.

Intergenerational Human Capital Spillovers: Indonesia’s School Construction and Its Effects on the Next Generation

We analyze the effects of increased access to education in one generation on human capital outcomes in the next generation. Using longitudinal data, we exploit the geographical and cohort variations in exposure to a massive primary school construction program in the 1970s in Indonesia. We show that the school building project increases primary school completion rates among both men and women. We find that children whose mothers were exposed to the school building project score higher on the national primary school examination, suggesting the importance of maternal education in the intergenerational transmission of human capital.

The intergenerational transmission of human capital: the role of skills and health

We provide new evidence on some of the mechanisms reflected in the intergenerational transmission of human capital. Applying both an adoption and a twin design to rich data from the Swedish military enlistment, we show that greater parental education increases sons’ cognitive and non-cognitive skills, as well as their health. The estimates are in many cases similar across research designs and suggest that a substantial part of the effect of parental education on their young adult children’s human capital works through improving their skills and health.

Dynastic Inequality Compared: Multigenerational Mobility in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany

Using harmonized household survey data, we analyze long‐run social mobility in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany, and test recent theories of multigenerational persistence of socioeconomic status. In this country comparison setting, we find evidence against a universal law of social mobility. Our results show that the long‐run persistence of socioeconomic status and the validity of a first‐order Markov chain in the intergenerational transmission of human capital is country‐specific. Furthermore, we find that the direct and independent effect of grandparents' social status on grandchildren's status tends to vary by gender and institutional context.

Understanding the Intergenerational Transmission of Human Capital: Evidence from a Quasi‐natural Experiment in China

AbstractThis paper exploits the closure of senior secondary schools in urban China from 1966 to 1971 in order to identify the causal intergenerational transmission effects of education. The paper uses the instrumental variable approach to examine the intergenerational causality of educational transmission at the senior secondary schooling level in urban China. The exogenous variation in parental senior secondary educational attainment both over time and across regions allows us account for selection bias and thus identify the causal intergenerational transmission effect in education. We further show that our conclusion is robust to alternative identification strategies and data sets.

The Intergenerational Transmission of Human Capital and Earnings in Contemporary Russia

We make use of longitudinal data for the Russian economy over 1994-2013 to obtain earnings and education information about parents and children. We estimate the intergenerational transmission of educational attainment and earning capacity and find high intergenerational correlation of earnings for both sons and daughters independently of educational qualifications. We attribute them to the impact of informal networks. We also find high correlation of educational qualifications but with critical variations due to labour market conditions. At the time of transition around 1990 children's educational attainment fell well below parents but recovered a decade later when the economy was booming.

What Accounts for the Racial Gap in Time Allocation and Intergenerational Transmission of Human Capital?

This paper analyzes the sources of the racial difference in the intergenerational transmission of human capital by developing and estimating a dynastic model of parental time and monetary inputs in early childhood with endogenous fertility, home hours, labor supply, marriage, and divorce. It finds that the racial differences in the marriage matching patterns lead to racial differences in labor supply and home hours of couples. Although both the black-white labor market earnings and marriage market gaps are important sources of the black-white achievement gap, the assortative mating and divorce probabilities racial gaps accounts for a larger fraction of it.

Population aging, economic growth, and the social transmission of human capital: An analysis with an overlapping generations model

We develop a computable overlapping generations model in which the accumulation of human capital is endogenous. The model is similar to that of Fougere et al. (2009) and Sadahiro and Shimasawa (2002). It is, however, distinguished from them in several aspects regarding the individual utility function and the intergenerational transmission of human capital. We use the model to explore the effect of population aging on economic growth in Korea. The simulation shows that population aging causes a decrease in labor supply growth and an increase in capital stock growth, thus yielding capital deepening. The aging of the population may significantly undermine growth potential. However, the result is sensitive to the manner of intergenerational transmission of human capital. Our study shows that the mode of social transmission of human capital is quite important for long-term growth of the economy.