Intergenerational Persistence of Earnings: The Role of Early and College Education
Abstract
Recent empirical evidence from the United States indicates a high degree of persistence in earnings across generations. Designing effective public policies to increase social mobility requires identifying and measuring the major sources of persistence and inequality in earnings. We provide a quantitative model of intergenerational human capital transmission that focuses on three sources: innate ability, early education, and college education. We find that approximately one-half of the intergenerational correlation in earnings is accounted for by parental investment in education, in particular early education. We show that these results have important implications for education policy.Download Info
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Bibliographic Info
Article provided by American Economic Association in its journal American Economic Review.
Volume (Year): 94 (2004)
Issue (Month): 5 (December)
Pages: 1354-1378
Note: DOI: 10.1257/0002828043052213
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Keywords:Other versions of this item:
- Diego Restuccia & Carlos Urrutia, 2002. "Intergenerational Persistence of Earnings: The Role of Early and College Education," Working Papers diegor-02-03, University of Toronto, Department of Economics.
- Diego Restuccia & Carlos Urrutia, 2002. "Intergenerational Persistence of Earnings: The Role of Early and College Education," Working Papers 0209, Centro de Investigacion Economica, ITAM.
- Diego Restuccia & Carlos Urrutia, 2002. "Intergenerational Persistence of Earnings: The Role of Early and College Education," University of Western Ontario, Economic Policy Research Institute Working Papers 20024, University of Western Ontario, Economic Policy Research Institute.
- I2 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education
- E6 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook
- J62 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, and Vacancies - - - Job, Occupational and Intergenerational Mobility; Promotion
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