Does parental joblessness delay young adults' school-to-work transitions? If so, can a university degree moderate this relationship? We examine these questions using a representative sample of young adults under the age of 25 that lived with their parents prior to entering the labor market in...

To understand the socio-economic enrollment gap in university attendance, we elicit students’ beliefs about the benefits of university education in a sample of 2,540 secondary school students. Our choice model estimates reveal that perceived non-pecuniary benefits explain a large share of the...

Using harmonized household survey data, we analyse long run social mobility in the US, the UK, and Germany and test recent theories of multigenerational persistence of socio-economic status. In this country comparison setting we find evidence against Gregory Clark's "universal law of social...

The United States and China are the world's largest economies. Together they are responsible for about one-third of the world's economic output. This paper aims to examine whether the two economic giants are also lands of opportunity where resources are allocated in a way that minimizes...

This study examines whether investment in public schools can enhance equality of opportunity as measured by intergenerational income mobility (IGM). To estimate the causal effect of public school spending, I exploit the plausibly exogenous variation in school spending induced by the U.S....

We measure the level and growth of education segregation in American workplaces from 2000 to 2020. American workplaces show an educational segregation, measured by the degree to which the establishment has mostly workers of similar education levels, that is comparable to racial residential...

Concerns about widening inequality have increased attention on the topic of equality of opportunities and intergenerational mobility. We use data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to analyse how educational and income mobility has evolved in the United States of America. We show...

While rising house prices benefit existing homeowners, we document a new channel through which price shocks have intergenerational wealth effects. Using panel data from school zones within a large U.S. school district, we find that higher local house prices lead to improvements in local school...

Leadership positions in the U.S. are disproportionately held by graduates of a few highly selective private colleges. Could such colleges -- which currently have many more students from high-income families than low-income families -- increase the socioeconomic diversity of America's leaders by...

I document that (i) the mean and dispersion of pre-tax labor earnings grow faster over the life-cycle in the U.S. than in some European countries; (ii) these facts are largely driven by individuals with at least a college degree. I study these differences in labor earnings inequality using a...