American Economic Review
ISSN 0002-8282 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7981 (Online)
Intergenerational Persistence of Earnings: The Role of Early and College Education
American Economic Review
vol. 94,
no. 5, December 2004
(pp. 1354–1378)
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.Citation
Restuccia, Diego, and Carlos Urrutia. 2004. "Intergenerational Persistence of Earnings: The Role of Early and College Education." American Economic Review, 94 (5): 1354–1378. DOI: 10.1257/0002828043052213JEL Classification
- I21 Analysis of Education
- J24 Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
- J62 Job, Occupational, and Intergenerational Mobility; Promotion