IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aejmac/v14y2022i4p438-78.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Family Heterogeneity, Human Capital Investment, and College Attainment

Author

Listed:
  • Adam Blandin
  • Christopher Herrington

Abstract

From 1995 to 2015 the aggregate US college completion rate increased almost 50 percent, but completion trends differed markedly by family background. We consider whether changing college preparedness contributed to growth in aggregate completion and differences by family background. We first document parallel empirical trends in precollege investments, college preparedness, and completion. We use these moments to discipline a quantitative model of intergenerational human capital investment with heterogeneous families. Within the model, investment trends generate half of the empirical increase in college completion. The model implies that subsidizing precollege investments increases college completion and lifetime earnings more than college tuition subsidies.

Suggested Citation

  • Adam Blandin & Christopher Herrington, 2022. "Family Heterogeneity, Human Capital Investment, and College Attainment," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(4), pages 438-478, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aejmac:v:14:y:2022:i:4:p:438-78
    DOI: 10.1257/mac.20200014
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/mac.20200014
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://doi.org/10.3886/E135321V1
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/mac.20200014.appx
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/mac.20200014.ds
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1257/mac.20200014?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Santos, Cezar & Tertilt, Michèle, 2023. "How families matter for understanding economic inequality," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 13080, Inter-American Development Bank.
    2. Uta Bolt & Eric French & Jamie Hentall Maccuish & Cormac O’Dea, 2018. "Intergenerational Altruism and Transfers of Time and Money: A Life-cycle Perspective," Working Papers wp379, University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center.
    3. Suzane Bellue, 2023. "Why Don’t Poor Families Move? A Spatial Equilibirum Analysis of Parental Decisions with Social Learning," CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series crctr224_2023_472, University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany.
    4. Cezar Santos & Michèle Tertilt, 2023. "How Families Matter for Understanding Economic Inequality," CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series crctr224_2023_456, University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I23 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Higher Education; Research Institutions
    • I26 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Returns to Education
    • J12 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:aejmac:v:14:y:2022:i:4:p:438-78. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.