This paper studies how individuals believe human capital investments will affect their future career and family life. We conducted a survey of high-ability currently enrolled college students and elicited beliefs about how their choice of college major, and whether to complete their degree at...

This paper analyses the effects of expected earnings and local markets conditions on the behaviour of young adults with high school diplomas. Decisions to either remain in the parental home or form a new household are modelled jointly with those of either gaining work experience or investing in...

We examine how the gender of a sibling affects earnings, education and family formation. Identification is complicated by parental preferences: if parents prefer certain sex compositions over others, childrenś gender affects not only the outcomes of other children but also the very existence of...

This study analyses which individual and institutional factors (causally) influence individuals in their educational career and in their choice for an occupation. Chapter 2 explores consequences of parental separation for cognitive skill development of children. In the year before parental...

Previous studies show that immigrants married to natives earn higher wages than immigrants married to other immigrants. Using data from the 1980-2000 U.S. censuses and the 2005- 2010 American Community Surveys, we show that these wage premiums have increased over time. Our evidence suggests that...

This paper investigates the role performed by mothers in affecting their childrens' performance at school. The article develops firstly a theoretical model in which household (parentchild pair) is treated as an individual, whose utility depends both on the performance at school of the student...

This paper estimates the economic and non-economic returns to volunteering for prime-aged women. A woman's decision to engage in unpaid work, and to marry and have children, is formulated as a forward-looking discrete choice dynamic programming problem. Simulated maximum likelihood estimates of...

In direct contrast to conventional wisdom and most economic models of gender differences in age of marriage, we present robust evidence that men and women who are married to differently-aged spouses are negatively selected. Earnings analysis of married couples in the 1970, 1980, 1990 and 2000...

Estimation of the causal effect of parental migration on children's educational attainment is complicated by the fact that migrants and non-migrants are likely to differ in unobservable ways that also affect children's educational outcomes. This paper suggests a novel way of addressing this...

This paper assesses how the economic support provided by parents to young adults as they complete their education and enter the labor market is related to the family's socioeconomic circumstances. We address this issue using detailed survey data on intergenerational co-residence and financial...