Why the apple doesn't fall far: understanding intergenerational transmission of human capital

Sandra E. Black (), Paul J. Devereux () and Kjell G Salvanes ()

No CWP16/03, CeMMAP working papers from Centre for Microdata Methods and Practice, Institute for Fiscal Studies

Abstract: Parents with higher education levels have children with higher education levels. However, is this because parental education actually changes the outcomes of children, suggesting an important spillover of education policies, or is it merely that more able individuals who have higher education also have more able children? This paper proposes to answer this question by using a unique dataset from Norway. Using the reform of the education system that was implemented in different municipalities at different times in the 1960s as an instrument for parental education, we find little evidence of a causal relationship between parents' education and children's education, despite significant OLS relationships. We find 2SLS estimates that are consistently lower than the OLS estimates with the only statistically significant effect being a positive relationship between mother's education and son's education. These findings suggest that the high correlations between parents' and children's education are due primarily to family characteristics and inherited ability and not education spillovers.

JEL-codes: I21 J13 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2003-10
View list of references View citations in EconPapers

Downloads: (external link)
http://cemmap.ifs.org.uk/wps/cwp0316.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Why the Apple Doesn’t Fall Far: Understanding Intergenerational Transmission of Human Capital (2003)
Working Paper: Why the apple doesn't fall far: understanding intergenerational transmission of human capital (2004)
Working Paper: Why the Apple Doesn't Fall Far: Understanding Intergenerational Transmission of Human Capital (2003)
Journal Article: Why the Apple Doesn't Fall Far: Understanding Intergenerational Transmission of Human Capital (2005)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ifs:cemmap:16/03

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
The Institute for Fiscal Studies 7 Ridgmount Street LONDON WC1E 7AE

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CeMMAP working papers from Centre for Microdata Methods and Practice, Institute for Fiscal Studies
Address: The Institute for Fiscal Studies 7 Ridgmount Street LONDON WC1E 7AE
Series data maintained by Emma Hyman ().