Intergenerational correlation and social interactions in education

Sebastian Bervoets, Yves Zenou

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleResearchpeer-review

3 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

We propose a dynastic model where individuals are born into an educated or uneducated environment that they inherit from their parents. We study the impact of social interactions on the correlation in parent-child educational status, independently of any parent-child interaction. When the level of social interactions is decided by a social planner, we show that the correlation in education status between generations decreases very fast as social interactions increase. In turn, when the level of social interactions is decided by the individuals themselves, we show that the intergenerational correlation still decreases, although less rapidly than with exogenous social interactions.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)13-30
Number of pages18
JournalEuropean Economic Review
Volume92
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Feb 2017

Keywords

  • Education
  • Intergenerational correlation
  • Social mobility
  • Strong and weak ties

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