Why So Many Children of Doctors Become Doctors: Nepotism vs. Human Capital Transfers

Bernard F. Lentz and David Laband ()

Journal of Human Resources, 1989, vol. 24, issue 3, 396-413

Abstract: In this paper we document a statistically significant, marginally greater probability of admittance into (at least one) medical school for children of doctors as compared to children of non-doctors. This fact can plausibly be explained as resulting from nepotism, in various forms, as well as from human capital transfers from first to (would-be) second generation doctors. After controlling for acquired human capital and other attributes of medical school applicants, we cannot reject nepotism as a cause-children of doctors are nearly 14 percent more likely to be admitted into medical school than are comparable nonfollowers.

Date: 1989
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (72)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/145820
A subscription is required to access pdf files. Pay per article is available.

Related works:
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: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:uwp:jhriss:v:24:y:1989:i:3:p:396-413

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Human Resources from University of Wisconsin Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().