Birth timing and the intergenerational transmission of human capital

Ignacio Palacios-Huerta

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

Abstract: Arbitrary age-cutoff dates used for eligibility in schooling and organized sports create differential opportunities for children that can have long-term consequences. These opportunities, in turn, provide incentives for birth-date targeting. I study a setting in which being born just after the cutoff date is highly advantageous relative to being born late in the eligibility year. Using an exogenous change in the cutoff date, I obtain causal evidence showing how birth timing at conception re-sponds to memory-based salient incentives: certain parents target birth dates to ensure that their children are among the oldest in the eligibility year.

Keywords: European Regional Development Fund; PID2019-106146GB-I00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 33 pages
Date: 2024-03-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-spo
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Published in Journal of Human Capital, 1, March, 2024, 18(1), pp. 194 - 226. ISSN: 1932-8575

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http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/122622/ Open access version. (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Birth Timing and the Intergenerational Transmission of Human Capital (2024)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:122622

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