The Wealth of Mexican Americans

Deborah Cobb-Clark and Vincent Hildebrand

No 1150, IZA Discussion Papers from IZA Network @ LISER

Abstract: This paper analyzes the sources of disparities in the relative wealth position of Mexican Americans. Results reveal that wealth gaps are in large part not the result of differences in conditional expected wealth functions. Similarly, income differentials are important, but do not play the primary role in explaining the gap in median net worth. As much or more of Mexican Americans’ wealth disadvantage is attributable to the fact that these families have more young children and heads who are younger. Furthermore, Mexican Americans’ low educational attainment has a direct effect in producing a wealth gap relative to other ethnic groups (even after differences in income are taken into account) though education does not significantly affect the nativity wealth gap. Finally, geographic concentration is generally unimportant, but does contribute to narrowing the wealth gap between wealthy Mexican Americans and their white and black counterparts.

Keywords: Mexican Americans; wealth (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G11 J10 J61 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 48 pages
Date: 2004-05
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (18)

Published - published in: Journal of Human Resources, 2006, 41 (4), 841-868

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp1150.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: The Wealth of Mexican Americans (2006)
Working Paper: The Wealth of Mexican Americans (2006)
Working Paper: The Wealth of Mexican Americans (2004)
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:iza:izadps:dp1150

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from IZA Network @ LISER Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Mark Fallak ().