The Not-So-Hot Melting Pot: The Persistence of Outcomes for Descendants of the Age of Mass Migration

Zachary Ward

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 2020, vol. 12, issue 4, 73-102

Abstract: How persistent are economic gaps across ethnicities? The convergence of ethnic gaps through the third generation of immigrants is difficult to measure because few datasets include grandparental birthplace. I overcome this limitation with a new three-generational dataset that links immigrant grandfathers in 1880 to their grandsons in 1940. I find that the persistence of ethnic gaps in occupational income is 2.5 times stronger than predicted by a standard grandfather-grandson elasticity. While part of the discrepancy is due to measurement error attenuating the grandfather-grandson elasticity, mechanisms related to geography also partially explain the stronger persistence of ethnic occupational differentials.

JEL-codes: J15 J22 J31 J51 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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DOI: 10.1257/app.20170382

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