2022 Klein lecture. Parental education and invention: the Finnish enigma

Philippe Aghion, Ufuk Akcigit, Ari Hyytinen and Otto Toivanen

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: Why is invention strongly positively correlated with parental income not only in the United States but also in Finland, which displays low income inequality and high social mobility? Using data on 1.45 M Finnish individuals and their parents, we find the following: (i) the positive association between parental income and off-spring probability of inventing is greatly reduced when controlling for parental education; (ii) instrumenting for the parents having an MSc degree using distance to nearest university reveals a large causal effect of parental education on offspring probability of inventing; and (iii) the causal effect of parental education has been markedly weakened by the introduction in the early 1970s of a comprehensive schooling reform.

JEL-codes: J1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 38 pages
Date: 2023-05-16
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur and nep-ltv
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Published in International Economic Review, 16, May, 2023, 64(2), pp. 453 - 490. ISSN: 0020-6598

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http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/118708/ Open access version. (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: 2022 KLEIN LECTURE PARENTAL EDUCATION AND INVENTION: THE FINNISH ENIGMA (2023)
Working Paper: 2022 Klein lecture parental education and invention: the finnish enigma (2023)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:118708

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