This paper estimates the short-run impact of parental risky behaviors on multiple dimensions of child development using 30 years of data from a representative Russian longitudinal survey. We use factor analysis to construct a composite index of parental risky behaviors and health habits. The...

State-led repression of minority identities is a well-documented phenomenon, yet its implications for national identity remain understudied. We examine how the Soviet state-induced famine (1932–33) shapes contemporary Ukrainian national identity through vertical (familial) and horizontal...

We estimate the intergenerational effects of compulsory schooling (CS) laws in the United States (1875 to 1940), exploiting the staggered roll-out of state CS laws and using difference-in-differences and instrumental variable (IV) approaches in a linked panel of full-count US census data....

How does economic growth affect individual wealth accumulation and, thereby, wealth inequality? Combining individual wealth from the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) and local GDP growth across 401 German counties, this paper documents a sizable Hometown-Growth-Wealth Nexus. We find that past...

Guinea worm disease (GWD) was known as 'the disease of the empty granary' because it often incapacitated adult farmers for weeks during peak agricultural seasons. Using a difference-in-differences design, we show that its post-1989 eradication from Ghana increased agricultural productivity and...

This paper estimates the impact of the Free Education Policy, a major education reform implemented in rural China in 2006, as a natural experiment on the intergenerational transmission of cognitive skills. The identification strategy relies on a difference-in-differences approach and exploits...

This paper estimates the impact of the Free Education Policy, a major education reform implemented in rural China in 2006, as a natural experiment on the intergenerational transmission of cognitive skills. The identification strategy relies on a difference-in-differences approach and exploits...

University graduates are two to five times as likely to hold a degree in the field that their parents graduated from. To estimate how much of this association is caused by the education choices of parents, I exploit admission thresholds to university programs in a regression discontinuity...

Using linked records from the 1880 to 1940 full-count United States decennial censuses, we estimate the effects of parental exposure to compulsory schooling (CS) laws on the human capital outcomes of children, exploiting the staggered roll-out of state CS laws in the late nineteenth and early...

Since the mapping of the human genome in 2004, biologists have demonstrated genetic links to the expression of several income-enhancing physical traits. To illustrate how heredity produces intergenerational economic effects, this study uses one trait, beauty, to infer the extent to which...

This paper investigates the intergenerational transmission of preferences between parents and their children, examining the transmission of patience, propensity to save, and conscientiousness. We explore the role of specific parental behaviours, such as sharing financial information, in this...

Generous maternity leave, affordable daycare, extensive social safety nets, excellent universal health care, and high-quality public schools, are all notable features of Nordic countries. There is a widespread belief that such strong public investments in children contribute to a levelled...

Using linked records from the 1880 to 1940 full-count United States decennial censuses, we estimate the effects of parental exposure to compulsory schooling (CS) laws on the human capital outcomes of children, exploiting the staggered roll-out of state CS laws in the late nineteenth and early...

This paper evaluates whether environmental education can shift household behavior through intergenerational transmission of knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes. We implement an activity-based program in Patna, India, and conduct a randomized experiment with 1,545 child-parent pairs assigned to...

This paper examines the role of sibling sex composition as a potential explanation of the transmission of parental advantages to the next generation. The presence of a brother affects the family environment and parents' decisions, influencing the siblings' labour market outcomes in the long...

China's One-Child Policy (OCP) restricted most couples to a single birth, leading to a rapid increase in the prevalence of only children. Using longitudinal data and a regression discontinuity design around the policy's start, we estimate the effects on grandchildren's human capital. We find...

Children and their parents resemble each other in terms of economic preferences such as patience and risk tolerance. What drives the intergenerational correlation in preferences? We build a model of preference formation that combines genetic transmission, state influence through childcare...

There is continued debate, with important social consequences, about how social status is transmitted between parents and children. In particular, how much does genetics as opposed to social causation matter? In an ingenious recent article, Collado et al. (2023), using an extended family lineage...

The literature on intergenerational mobility for many countries in the world focus on household surveys that capture the education of parents and their children. While they pay particular attention to issues regarding co-residency of fathers and son, they are somewhat weaker in information on...

We examine health persistence between parents and their adult children in Indonesia using both subjective and objective health measures including biomarkers. Using Principal Components Analysis, we estimate the interegenerational persistence of the combination of these measures to be 0.30,...

This paper examines the geography of intergenerational income mobility in South Africa across districts and metropolitan municipalities as well as historically disadvantaged former-homelands. South Africa's high inequality has a geographical dimension (spatial inequality), shaped by a long...

We develop a model that links education-outcome gradients to intergenerational transmission, distinguishing joint from parent-specific channels under assortative mating. Using Danish administrative data on family quartets, we estimate the own education-outcome gradient and, in addition,...

China's One-Child Policy (OCP) restricted most couples to a single birth, leading to a rapid increase in the prevalence of only children. Using longitudinal data and a regression discontinuity design around the policy's start, we estimate the effects on grandchildren's human capital. We find...

Africa remains the poorest and one of the most unequal regions globally, with limited upward mobility and strong intergenerational persistence of disadvantage. Child health is a key channel of transmission, shaping later outcomes in education, labour force participation, and earnings. This paper...

We estimate the long-term intergenerational mobility (IM) in Brazil, by mesoregion, utiliz ing the methodology developed by Güell, Mora and Telmer (2015) and Güell et al. (2018). Benefiting from the unique features of Brazil, such as data availability on income, edu cation, full names, our...

Less or more rain, forever pain? This paper examines the long-run and intergenerational effects of early-life exposure to droughts and wet shocks on human capital outcomes over the life course. Combining a unique three-decade longitudinal survey of pregnant mothers in Metropolitan Cebu, the...

Drawing from the lens of entrepreneurship as a contextually driven phenomenon, this study examined the effects of parental business exposure (PBE) on the entrepreneurial mode of entry (EME) of the next-generation family members and the role of exposure to self-employed grandparents and...

This paper examines possible spillover effects of parental unemployment on the subjective wellbeing of 12- to 21-year-old children. Using German panel data (SOEP), we show that unemployment of fathers and mothers is negatively associated with their children's life satisfaction. When controlling...

Newborn health is an important component in the chain of intergenerational transmission of disadvantage. This paper contributes to the literature on the determinants of health at birth in two ways. First, we analyze the role of maternal endowments and investments (education and smoking in...

University graduates are more than three times as likely to hold a degree in the field that their parent graduated from. To estimate how much of this association is caused by the educational choices of parents, I exploit admission thresholds to university programs in a regression discontinuity...

Explanations for the West's escape from premature mortality have focused on chronic malnutrition or income and on public health or state capacity. We argue that by ignoring the multigenerational effects of variance in ancestors' harvests, we are underestimating the contribution of modern...

We estimate the intergenerational effects of compulsory schooling (CS) laws in the United States (1875 to 1940), exploiting the staggered roll-out of state CS laws and using difference-in-differences and instrumental variable (IV) approaches in a linked panel of full-count US census data....

How does economic growth affect individual wealth accumulation and, thereby, wealth inequality? Combining individual wealth from the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) and local GDP growth across 401 German counties, this paper documents a sizable Hometown-Growth-Wealth Nexus. We find that past...

Education is an important tool used to equip knowledge and pursue self-improvement, which may affect intergenerational social class mobility through human capital accumulation. Using 8014 mixed cross-section samples from the 2017, 2018 and 2021 China General Social Survey (CGSS), an...

State-led repression of minority identities is a well-documented phenomenon, yet its implications for national identity remain understudied. We examine how the Soviet state-induced famine (1932–33) shapes contemporary Ukrainian national identity through vertical (familial) and horizontal...

Preschool-aged children get sick frequently and spread disease to other family members. Despite the universality of this experience, there is limited causal evidence on the magnitudes and consequences of these externalities, especially for infant siblings with developing immune systems and...

This paper estimates the short-run impact of parental risky behaviors on multiple dimensions of child development using 30 years of data from a representative Russian longitudinal survey. We use factor analysis to construct a composite index of parental risky behaviors and health habits. The...