This paper investigates, theoretically and empirically, differences between blacks and whites in the U.S. concerning the intergenerational transmission of occupational skills and the effects on sons' earnings. The father-son skill correlation is measured by the correlation coefficient (or cosine...

This paper investigates trends in intergenerational transmission of education among black South Africans – changes in correlation between parents' and children's education. Using data for 1954-1993 birth cohorts, we find a decrease in intergenerational transmission of education over the last...

This paper investigates the intergenerational transmission of language capital amongst immigrants, and the effect of language deficiencies on the economic performance of second generation immigrants. Using a long panel that oversamples immigrants, we can follow their children after they have...

Building on Borjas (1993) I develop an intergenerational model of self-selection of migration and education that allows for a complex selection mechanism. In particular, it allows for the possibility that agents are selected differently depending on the schooling level they choose. As in Mayer...

This paper studies the role of ethnicity in the intergenerational transmission of educational attainment. Relying on heteroskedasticity to identify parameters in the presence of endogenous regressors, I revisit Borjas ethnic capital hypothesis. I find evidence that the OLS estimates of the...

We investigate the pattern of intergenerational transmission of language in a bilingual society. We consider the case of Catalonia, where the two main speech communities, Spanish and Catalan, are of similar sizes, both languages are official, and each one enjoys the protection of a different...

While much of the literature on immigrants' assimilation has focused on countries with a large tradition of receiving immigrants and with flexible labor markets, very little is known on how immigrants adjust to other types of host economies. With its severe dual labor market, and an...

The standard economic model of occupational choice following a basic Roy model emphasizes individual selection and comparative advantage, but the sources of comparative advantage are not well understood. We employ a unique combination of Dutch survey and registry data that links math and...

We investigate the racial gap in test scores between black and white students in Britain both in levels and differences across the school years. We find that there is an increasing racial gap in test scores between ages 7 and 11, and a decreasing one between ages 11 and 16. Using the richness of...

This paper studies parental investment in education and intergenerational earnings mobility for father-son pairs with native and foreign born fathers. We illustrate within a simple model that for immigrants, investment in their children is related to their return migration probability. In our...