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on Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty |
| By: | Uditi Karna; John A. List; Andrew Simon; Haruka Uchida |
| Abstract: | Parents are crucial to children’s educational success, but the role of parental education in fostering academic excellence remains underexplored. Using longitudinal administrative data covering all North Carolina public school students, we document five facts about first-generation excellence gaps. We find large excellence gaps emerge by 3rd grade across all demographics and persist through high school. Yet, socioeconomic status and school quality explain only one-third of the gaps. The overarching facts reveal that excellence gaps re-flect deeper challenges rooted in parental human capital that manifest early and compound over time, rather than merely consequences of socioeconomic disadvantage or school quality differences. |
| JEL: | I21 I24 I30 J08 |
| Date: | 2025–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34228 |
| By: | Bollinger, Christopher R. (University of Kentucky); Jenkins, Stephen P. (London School of Economics); Rios-Avila, Fernando (Levy Economics Institute); Tasseva, Iva V. (LSE) |
| Abstract: | We contribute new cross-national evidence about the nature of measurement errors in employment earnings, fitting the same error components model to harmonised earnings data for Austria and the UK. The model allows for measurement error in the administrative data and linkage error as well as survey measurement error. We find several cross-national similarities in error structure but also intriguing differences in error component probabilities, means, and dispersions. |
| Keywords: | administrative data, linked survey data, earnings, linkage error, measurement error, finite mixture models |
| JEL: | C81 C83 D31 |
| Date: | 2025–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18129 |
| By: | Joseph G. Altonji (Yale University and NBER); John Eric Humphries (Yale University and NBER); Yagmur Yuksel (Northwestern University); Ling Zhong (Yale University) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the gender gap in log earnings among full-time, college-educated workers born between 1931 and 1984. Using data from the National Survey of College Graduates and other sources, we decompose the gender earnings gap across birth cohorts into three components: (i) gender differences in the relative returns to undergraduate and graduate fields, (ii) gender-specific trends in undergraduate field, graduate degree attainment, and graduate field, and (iii) a cohortspecific Òresidual componentÓ that shifts the gender gap uniformly across all college graduates. We have three main findings. First, when holding the relative returns to fields constant, changes in fields of study contribute 0.128 to the decline in the gender gap. However, this decline is partially offset by cohort trends in the relative returns to specific fields that favored men over women, reducing the contribution of field-of-study changes to the decline to 0.055. Second, gender differences in the relative returns to undergraduate and graduate fields of study contribute to the earnings gap, but they play a limited role in explaining its decline over time. Third, much of the convergence in earnings between the 1931 and 1950 cohorts is due to a declining Òresidual component.Ó The residual component remains stable for cohorts born between 1951 and the late 1970s, after which it resumes its decline. |
| Date: | 2025–08–21 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cwl:cwldpp:2457 |
| By: | Christopher Hoy (Institute for Fiscal Studies); Lionel Page (University of Queensland); Catherine Eckel (Texas A&M University); Philip Grossman (Monash University); Daniel Goldstein (Microsoft Research) |
| Date: | 2025–09–22 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ifs:ifsewp:25/36 |
| By: | Menta, Giorgia (LISER); Biroli, Pietro (University of Bologna); Mehta, Divya (Queensland University of Technology); D'Ambrosio, Conchita (University of Luxembourg); Cobb-Clark, Deborah A. (University of Sydney) |
| Abstract: | Epigenetics is the study of how people’s behavior and environments influence the way their genes are expressed, even though their DNA sequence is itself unchanged. By aggregating age-related epigenetic markers, epigenetic ‘clocks’ have become the leading tool for studying biological aging. We make an important contribution by developing a novel, integrated measure of epigenetic aging – the Multi EpiGenetic Age (MEGA) clock – which combines several existing epigenetic clocks to reduce measurement error and improve estimation efficiency. We use the MEGA clock in three empirical contexts to show that: i) accelerated epigenetic aging in adolescence is associated with worse educational, mental-health, and labor market outcomes in early adulthood; ii) exposure to child maltreatment before adolescence is associated with half a year higher epigenetic aging; and iii) that entering school one year later accelerates epigenetic aging by age seven, particularly among disadvantaged children. The MEGA clock is robust to alternative methods for constructing it, providing a flexible and interpretable approach for incorporating epigenetic data into a wide variety of settings. |
| Keywords: | child abuse, DNA methylation, epigenetic clocks, human capital, ALSPAC data |
| JEL: | I12 I14 J24 |
| Date: | 2025–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18114 |
| By: | Bortolotti, Stefania (University of Bologna); Kölle, Felix (University of Cologne); Soraperra, Ivan (University of Amsterdam); Sutter, Matthias (Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods) |
| Abstract: | Inequality often arises from strategic interactions among individuals. This is so because risky investments can not only be resolved by chance (natural risk), but also by others’ actions (social risk). We study how these different sources of inequality shape fairness judgments and the level of redistribution in a controlled experiment with a total of 2, 152 participants. We find significantly less inequality acceptance, and thus much more redistribution, under social risk. In addition to the well-known types of Libertarians, Egalitarians and Choice Egalitarians, we identify a novel, hitherto unnoticed, fairness type — Insurers — who always compensate unlucky risk-takers and are especially prevalent when one is let down by others rather than simply unlucky by chance. This suggests that impartial spectators view betrayal as more deserving of support than bad luck. Our findings show that fairness ideals depend jointly on risk-taking and the way in which risk is resolved, either by nature or another human actor, thus highlighting the important role of strategic interaction for fairness types and redistribution. |
| Keywords: | experiment, redistribution, social risk, fairness views, inequality |
| JEL: | C91 D63 D90 |
| Date: | 2025–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18122 |
| By: | Andreas Fagereng; Luigi Guiso; Luigi Pistaferri; Marius A. K. Ring |
| Abstract: | We provide empirical evidence on the importance of a relatively understudied channel of insurance against labor income shocks: transfers from (cash-rich) parents to (cash-short) children when the latter experience negative wage shocks. Matching population data for Norway across two generations, we establish several results. First, parents make a transfer—i.e., run down liquid assets—when adult children experience negative labor income shocks. Consistent with dynastic insurance, we observe no transfers when income shocks are positive. Second, parents' responses depend on the nature of the shock. If losses are temporary, parents dissave; if they are persistent, parents save in order to make future transfers. Parental transfers offset 43% of temporary and 27% of persistent losses. Third, insurance is lower when children have other smoothing options, like spousal labor supply, and is greater for shocks to their own child versus a child’s spouse. Support also increases if the spouse’s parents can contribute, suggesting “competition for attention.” Lastly, insurance flows are one-way: children do not insure their parents against income losses. |
| JEL: | D31 E21 E24 G11 |
| Date: | 2025–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34253 |
| By: | Claudia Goldin |
| Abstract: | The fertility decline is everywhere in the world today. Moreover, the decline goes decades back in the histories of rich countries. Birthrates have been below replacement in the U.S. and Europe since the mid-1970s, although further declines occurred after the Great Recession. The reasons for the declines from the 1970s to the early 2000s involve greater female autonomy and a mismatch between the desires of men and women. Men benefit more from maintaining traditions; women benefit more from eschewing them. When the probability is low that men will abandon traditions, some career women will not have children and others will delay, often too long. The fertility histories of the U.S. and those of many European and Asian countries speak to the impact of the mismatch on birth rates. The experience of middle income and even poorer nations may also be due to related factors. Various constraints that I group under matching problems have caused fertility to be lower than otherwise and imply that fertility has a “downside.” |
| JEL: | J10 J16 N30 |
| Date: | 2025–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34268 |