Search Results

Author: Carneiro, Pedro M.
Resulting in 19 citations.
1. Carneiro, Pedro M.
Heterogeneity in the Returns to Schooling: Implications for Policy Evaluation
Ph.D. Dissertation, The University of Chicago, 2003. DAI-A 64/07, p. 2602, Jan 2004
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: UMI - University Microfilms, Bell and Howell Information and Learning
Keyword(s): Educational Returns; Heterogeneity; Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID); Schooling; Tuition

In this paper I examine the empirical importance of accounting for heterogeneity (and selection) in the estimation of the returns to schooling and in the evaluation of education policy. I study white males and females in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and High School and Beyond, and white males in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. I find that, across datasets, heterogeneity (and selection) in returns is an empirically relevant phenomenon. The return to schooling for the average student in college is systematically above the return to schooling for the average individual indifferent between going to college or not (marginal individual). It is also generally above the return for individuals induced to go to college by different tuition subsidies.
Bibliography Citation
Carneiro, Pedro M. Heterogeneity in the Returns to Schooling: Implications for Policy Evaluation. Ph.D. Dissertation, The University of Chicago, 2003. DAI-A 64/07, p. 2602, Jan 2004.
2. Carneiro, Pedro M.
Human Capital Policy for Europe
Presented: Brussels, Belgium, Workshop on Quality and Efficiency in Education and Training, May 2004.
Also: http://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/events/2004/bxl0504/carneiro_en.pdf
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: Directorate General - Economic and Financial Affairs
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Cross-national Analysis; GED/General Educational Diploma/General Equivalency Degree/General Educational Development; Income Distribution; International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Racial Differences; Skills; Test Scores/Test theory/IRT

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

We live in a time of turbulence. There are large flows of individuals, capital and information and knowledge across the world. There are constant and rapid changes to which individuals need to adapt everyday. In such a world the abilities to process information and to be flexible will sell at a large premium, while inflexibility and ignorance are a recipe for a most likely failure. In such a world, it is important to be highly skilled. In this paper I argue that there is a skill problem in Europe and I present some basic principles that should be in the background of a human capital strategy for Europe.
Bibliography Citation
Carneiro, Pedro M. "Human Capital Policy for Europe." Presented: Brussels, Belgium, Workshop on Quality and Efficiency in Education and Training, May 2004.
3. Carneiro, Pedro M.
Cunha, Flavio
Heckman, James J.
Technology of Skill Formation
Presented: Florence, Italy, Society for Economic Dynamics Annual Meeting, Villa La Pietra, July 1-3, 2004
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: Society for Economic Dynamics
Keyword(s): Child Development; Human Capital; I.Q.; Life Cycle Research; Skill Formation

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

This paper presents formal models of child development that capture the essence of recent findings from the empirical literature on child development. The goal is to provide theoretical frameworks for interpreting the evidence from a vast empirical literature, for guiding the next generation of empirical studies and for formulating policy. We start from the premise that skill formation is a life-cycle process. It starts in the womb and goes on throughout most of the adult life. Families and firms have a role in this process that is at least as important as the role of schools. There are multiple skills and multiple abilities that are important for adult success. Abilities are both inherited and created, and the traditional debate of nature versus nurture is outdated and scientifically obsolete. The technology of skill formation has two additional important characteristics. The first one is that IQ and behavior are more plastic at early ages than at later ages. Furthermore, behavior is much more malleable than IQ as individuals age. The second is that human capital investments are complementary over time. Early investments increase the productivity of later investments. Early investments are not productive if they are not followed up by later investments. The returns to investing early in the life cycle are high. Remediation of inadequate early investments is difficult and very costly.
Bibliography Citation
Carneiro, Pedro M., Flavio Cunha and James J. Heckman. "Technology of Skill Formation." Presented: Florence, Italy, Society for Economic Dynamics Annual Meeting, Villa La Pietra, July 1-3, 2004.
4. Carneiro, Pedro M.
Ginja, Rita
Partial Insurance and Investments in Children
Working Paper 2012:20, Uppsala Center for Labor Studies (UCLS), Department of Economics, Uppsala University, December 2012.
Also: http://swopec.hhs.se/uulswp/abs/uulswp2012_022.htm
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: Department of Economics, Uppsala University
Keyword(s): Family Income; Family Resources; Home Observation for Measurement of Environment (HOME); Human Capital; Income Dynamics/Shocks; Insurance; Parent-Child Interaction; Parental Investments; Welfare

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

This paper studies the impact of permanent and transitory shocks to income on parental investments in children. We use panel data on family income, and an index of investments in children in time and goods, from the Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Consistent with the literature focusing on non-durable expenditure, we find that there is only partial insurance of parental investments against permanent income shocks, and we cannot reject the hypothesis full insurance against temporary shocks. Nevertheless, the magnitude of the estimated responses is small. A permanent shock corresponding to 10% of family income leads, at most, to an increase in investments of 1.3% of a standard deviation.
Bibliography Citation
Carneiro, Pedro M. and Rita Ginja. "Partial Insurance and Investments in Children." Working Paper 2012:20, Uppsala Center for Labor Studies (UCLS), Department of Economics, Uppsala University, December 2012.
5. Carneiro, Pedro M.
Ginja, Rita
Partial Insurance and Investments in Children
Economic Journal 126,596 (October 2016): F66-F95.
Also: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ecoj.12421
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: Royal Economic Society (RES)
Keyword(s): Family Income; Family Resources; Home Observation for Measurement of Environment (HOME); Human Capital; Income Dynamics/Shocks; Insurance; Parental Investments

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

This article studies the impact of permanent and transitory shocks to income on parental investments in children. We use panel data on family income and an index of investments in children, from the Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. We find that there is partial insurance of parental investments against permanent income shocks but the magnitude of the estimated responses is small. We cannot reject the hypothesis of full insurance against temporary shocks. Another interpretation of our findings is that insurance possibilities are limited but the fact that skill is a non-separable function of parental investments over time results in small reactions of these investments to income shocks, especially at later ages.
Bibliography Citation
Carneiro, Pedro M. and Rita Ginja. "Partial Insurance and Investments in Children." Economic Journal 126,596 (October 2016): F66-F95.
6. Carneiro, Pedro M.
Ginja, Rita
Preventing Behavior Problems in Childhood and Adolescence: Evidence from Head Start
Presented: New York, NY, Society of Labor Economists Annual Meeting, May 2008.
Also: http://client.norc.org/jole/SOLEweb/8201.pdf
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: National Opinion Research Center - NORC
Keyword(s): Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Behavior, Antisocial; Behavioral Problems; CESD (Depression Scale); Crime; Depression (see also CESD); Head Start; Health, Mental/Psychological; Obesity

This paper shows that participation in Head Start decreases behavioral problems, grade repetition, and obesity of children at ages 12 and 13, and depression, criminal behavior, and obesity at ages 16 and 17. Head Start eligibility rules induce discontinuities in program participation as a function of income, which we use to identify program impacts. Since there is a range of discontinuities (they vary with family size, state and year), we identify the effect of Head Start for a large set of individuals, as opposed to a small set of people around a single discontinuity. We use data on females from the 1979 cohort of the National Longitudinal Survey of the Youth (NLSY79) combined with a panel of their children, the Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth of 1979 (CNLSY79). We focus on the impact of the program in two age groups – children 12 to 13 (using the BPI scale and an indicator for smoking habits, indicators of grade repetition, special education attendance, and obesity) and adolescents 16 to 17 (using mental health and motivational outcomes using measures of depressive symptoms (the CESD), criminal behavior, smoking habits and obesity).
Bibliography Citation
Carneiro, Pedro M. and Rita Ginja. "Preventing Behavior Problems in Childhood and Adolescence: Evidence from Head Start." Presented: New York, NY, Society of Labor Economists Annual Meeting, May 2008.
7. Carneiro, Pedro M.
Hansen, Karsten T.
Heckman, James J.
Removing the Veil of Ignorance in Assessing the Distributional Impacts of Social Policies
IZA Discussion Paper No. 453, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), March 2002.
Also: ftp://ftp.iza.org/dps/dp453.pdf
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)
Keyword(s): Educational Attainment; Educational Returns; Modeling; Welfare

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

This paper summarizes our recent research on evaluating the distributional consequences of social programs. This research advances the economic policy evaluation literature beyond estimating assorted mean impacts to estimate distributions of outcomes generated by different policies and determine how those policies shift persons across the distributions of potential outcomes produced by them. Our approach enables analysts to evaluate the distributional effects of social programs without invoking the "Veil of Ignorance" assumption often used in the literature in applied welfare economics. Our methods determine which persons are affected by a given policy, where they come from in the ex-ante outcome distribution and what their gains are. We apply our methods to analyze two proposed policy reforms in American education. These reforms benefit the middle class and not the poor.
Bibliography Citation
Carneiro, Pedro M., Karsten T. Hansen and James J. Heckman. "Removing the Veil of Ignorance in Assessing the Distributional Impacts of Social Policies." IZA Discussion Paper No. 453, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), March 2002.
8. Carneiro, Pedro M.
Heckman, James J.
Human Capital Policy
In: Inequality in America: What Role for Human Capital Policies? J. Heckman and A. Krueger, eds., Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003: 77-240
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: MIT Press
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Behavior Problems Index (BPI); College Education; College Enrollment; Family Background and Culture; Family Income; Human Capital; Job Training; Life Cycle Research; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Racial Equality/Inequality; School Quality; Skill Formation; Tuition

This paper considers alternative policies for promoting skill formation that are targetted to different stages of the life cycle. We demonstrate the importance of both cognitive and noncognitive skills that are formed early in the life cycle in accounting for racial, ethnic and family background gaps in schooling and other dimensions of socioeconomic success. Most of the gaps in college attendance and delay are determined by early family factors. Children from better families and with high ability earn higher returns to schooling. We find only a limited role for tuition policy or family income supplements in eliminating schooling and college attendance gaps. At most 8% of American youth are credit constrained in the traditional usage of that term. The evidence points to a high return to early interventions and a low return to remedial or compensatory interventions later in the life cycle. Skill and ability beget future skill and ability. At current levels of funding, traditional policies like tuition subsidies, improvements in school quality, job training and tax rebates are unlikely to be effective in closing gaps.

Introduction / Benjamin M. Friedman -- Inequality, too much of a good thing / Alan B. Krueger -- Human capital policy / Pedro Carneiro and James J. Heckman -- Comments / George Borjas, Eric Hanushek, Lawrence Katz, Lisa Lynch, Lawrence H. Summers -- Responses / Alan B. Krueger, Pedro Carneiro and James J. Heckman -- Rejoinders / Alan B. Krueger, Pedro Carneiro and James J. Heckman.

Bibliography Citation
Carneiro, Pedro M. and James J. Heckman. "Human Capital Policy" In: Inequality in America: What Role for Human Capital Policies? J. Heckman and A. Krueger, eds., Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003: 77-240
9. Carneiro, Pedro M.
Heckman, James J.
The Evidence on Credit Constraints in Post-Secondary Schooling
NBER Working Paper No. 9055, National Bureau of Economic Research, July 2002.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w9055
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Cognitive Ability; College Enrollment; Credit/Credit Constraint; Debt/Borrowing; Educational Returns; Family Income; Income; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Schooling; Schooling, Post-secondary

This paper examines the family income--college enrollment relationship and the evidence on credit constraints in post-secondary schooling. We distinguish short-run liquidity constraints from the long-term factors that promote cognitive and noncognitive ability. Long-run factors crystallized in ability are the major determinants of the family income--schooling relationship, although there is some evidence that up to 4% of the total U.S. population is credit constrained in a short-run sense. Evidence that IV estimates of the returns to schooling exceed OLS estimates is sometimes claimed to support the existence of substantial credit constraints. This argument is critically examined.
Bibliography Citation
Carneiro, Pedro M. and James J. Heckman. "The Evidence on Credit Constraints in Post-Secondary Schooling." NBER Working Paper No. 9055, National Bureau of Economic Research, July 2002.
10. Carneiro, Pedro M.
Heckman, James J.
The Evidence on Credit Constraints in Post-Secondary Schooling
The Economic Journal 112, 482 (October 2002): 705-734
Also: http://netec.mcc.ac.uk/BibEc/data/Articles/ecjeconjlv:112:y:2002:i:482:p:705-734.html
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: Royal Economic Society (RES)
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Cognitive Ability; College Enrollment; Credit/Credit Constraint; Debt/Borrowing; Educational Returns; Family Income; Income; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Schooling; Schooling, Post-secondary

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

This paper examines the family income--college enrollment relationship and the evidence on credit constraints in post-secondary schooling. We distinguish short-run liquidity constraints from the long-term factors that promote cognitive and noncognitive ability. Long-run factors crystallized in ability are the major determinants of the family income--schooling relationship, although there is some evidence that up to 4% of the total U.S. population is credit constrained in a short-run sense. Evidence that IV estimates of the returns to schooling exceed OLS estimates is sometimes claimed to support the existence of substantial credit constraints. This argument is critically examined. This article draws on both the NLSY79 and the Children of the NLSY79, utilizing PIAT Math scores from the latter dataset.
Bibliography Citation
Carneiro, Pedro M. and James J. Heckman. "The Evidence on Credit Constraints in Post-Secondary Schooling." The Economic Journal 112, 482 (October 2002): 705-734.
11. Carneiro, Pedro M.
Heckman, James J.
Hansen, Karsten T.
Estimating Distributions of Treatment Effects with an Application to the Returns to Schooling and Measurement of the Effects of Uncertainty on College Choice
IZA Discussion Paper No. 767, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), April 2003
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)
Keyword(s): Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB); College Enrollment; Colleges; Educational Returns; LISREL; Modeling; Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID)

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Also: NBER Working Paper No. 9546, National Bureau of Economic Research, March 2003. http://nber.nber.org/papers/w9546

This paper uses factor models to identify and estimate distributions of counterfactuals. We extend LISREL frameworks to a dynamic treatment effect setting, extending matching to account for unobserved conditioning variables. Using these models, we can identify all pairwise and joint treatment effects. We apply these methods to a model of schooling and determine the intrinsic uncertainty facing agents at the time they make their decisions about enrollment in school. Reducing uncertainty in returns raises college enrollment. We go beyond the "Veil of Ignorance" in evaluating educational policies and determine who benefits and who loses from commonly proposed educational reforms. We consider the information on these individuals from age 19 to age 35. For our analysis, we use the random sample of the NLSY and restrict the sample to 1161 white males for whom we have information on schooling, several parental background variables, test scores and behavior.

Bibliography Citation
Carneiro, Pedro M., James J. Heckman and Karsten T. Hansen. "Estimating Distributions of Treatment Effects with an Application to the Returns to Schooling and Measurement of the Effects of Uncertainty on College Choice." IZA Discussion Paper No. 767, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), April 2003.
12. Carneiro, Pedro M.
Heckman, James J.
Masterov, Dimitriy V.
Labor Market Discrimination and Racial Differences in Premarket Factors
NBER Working Paper No. 10068, National Bureau of Economic Research, October 2003.
Also: http://papers.nber.org/papers/w10068.pdf
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Bias Decomposition; Children, Academic Development; Educational Aspirations/Expectations; Educational Attainment; Family Influences; Hispanics; Home Environment; Home Observation for Measurement of Environment (HOME); Labor Market Outcomes; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Racial Differences; Skill Formation; Wage Gap

This paper examines minority-white wage gaps. Neal and Johnson (1996) show that controlling for ability measured in the teenage years eliminates young adult wage gaps for all groups except for black males, for whom they eliminate 70% of the gap. Their study has been faulted because minority children and their parents may have pessimistic expectations about receiving fair rewards for their skills and so they may invest less in skill formation. If this is the case, discrimination may still affect wages, albeit indirectly, though it would appear that any racial differences in wages are due to differences in acquired traits. We find that gaps in ability across racial and ethnic groups open up at very early ages, long before child expectations are likely to become established. These gaps widen with age and schooling for Blacks, but not for Hispanics which indicates that poor schools and neighborhoods cannot be the principal factors affecting the slow black test score growth rate. Test scores depend on schooling attained at the time of the test. Adjusting for racial and ethnic differences in schooling attainment at the age the test is taken reduces the power of measured ability to shrink wage gaps for blacks, but not for other minorities. The evidence from expectations data are mixed. Although all groups are quite optimistic about future schooling outcomes, minority parents and children have more pessimistic expectations about child schooling relative to white children and their parents when their children are young. At later ages, expectations are more uniform across racial and ethnic groups. However, we also present some evidence that expectations data are unreliable and ambiguous. We also document the presence of disparities in noncognitive traits across racial and ethnic groups. These characteristics have been shown elsewhere to be important for explaining the labor market outcomes of adults.

This evidence points to the importance of early (preschool) family factors and environments in explaining both cognitive and noncognitive ability differentials by ethnicity and race. Policies that foster both types of ability are far more likely to be effective in promoting racial and ethnic equality for most groups than are additional civil rights and affirmative action policies targeted at the workplace.
Bibliography Citation
Carneiro, Pedro M., James J. Heckman and Dimitriy V. Masterov. "Labor Market Discrimination and Racial Differences in Premarket Factors." NBER Working Paper No. 10068, National Bureau of Economic Research, October 2003.
13. Carneiro, Pedro M.
Heckman, James J.
Masterov, Dimitriy V.
Labor Market Discrimination and Racial Differences in Premarket Factors
Journal of Law and Economics 48,1 (April 2005): 1-40.
Also: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/426878
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Bias Decomposition; Children, Academic Development; Educational Aspirations/Expectations; Educational Attainment; Family Influences; Home Environment; Home Observation for Measurement of Environment (HOME); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math)

This paper investigates the relative significance of differences in cognitive skills and discrimination in explaining racial/ethnic wage gaps. We show that cognitive test scores for exams taken prior to entering the labor market are influenced by schooling. Adjusting the scores for racial/ethnic differences in education at the time the test is taken reduces their role in accounting for the wage gaps. We also consider evidence on parental and child expectations about education and on stereotype threat effects. We find both factors to be implausible alternative explanations for the gaps we observe. We argue that policies need to address the sources of early skill gaps and to seek to influence the more malleable behavioral abilities in addition to their cognitive counterparts. Such policies are far more likely to be effective in promoting racial and ethnic equality for most groups than are additional civil rights and affirmative action policies targeted at the workplace.
Bibliography Citation
Carneiro, Pedro M., James J. Heckman and Dimitriy V. Masterov. "Labor Market Discrimination and Racial Differences in Premarket Factors." Journal of Law and Economics 48,1 (April 2005): 1-40.
14. Carneiro, Pedro M.
Lee, Sokbae
Estimating Distributions of Potential Outcomes Using Local Instrumental Variables with an Application to Changes in College Enrollment and Wage Inequality
Journal of Econometrics 149,2 (April 2009): 191-208.
Also: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304407609000281
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Elsevier
Keyword(s): College Enrollment; Colleges; High School Completion/Graduates; Schooling; Variables, Instrumental; Wage Equations; Wages

This paper extends the method of local instrumental variables developed by Heckman and Vytlacil [Heckman, J., Vytlacil E., 2005. Structural equations, treatment, effects and econometric policy evaluation. Econometrica 73(3), 669–738] to the estimation of not only means, but also distributions of potential outcomes. The newly developed method is illustrated by applying it to changes in college enrollment and wage inequality using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth of 1979. Increases in college enrollment cause changes in the distribution of ability among college and high school graduates. This paper estimates a semiparametric selection model of schooling and wages to show that, for fixed skill prices, a 14% increase in college participation (analogous to the increase observed in the 1980s), reduces the college premium by 12% and increases the 90–10 percentile ratio among college graduates by 2%. [Copyright 2009 Elsevier]

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Bibliography Citation
Carneiro, Pedro M. and Sokbae Lee. "Estimating Distributions of Potential Outcomes Using Local Instrumental Variables with an Application to Changes in College Enrollment and Wage Inequality." Journal of Econometrics 149,2 (April 2009): 191-208.
15. Carneiro, Pedro M.
Meghir, Costas
Parey, Matthias
Intergenerational Effects of Mothers Schooling on Children's Outcomes: Causal Links and Transmission Channels
Working Paper, Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), London, October 12, 2005.
Also: http://www.fundacionareces.es/PDF/educacion/carneiro.pdf
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), London
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Educational Aspirations/Expectations; Home Observation for Measurement of Environment (HOME); Intergenerational Patterns/Transmission; Mothers, Education; Parental Influences; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); School Progress; Tuition; Variables, Instrumental

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

The objective of this paper is to investigate mothers education as a driving force behind children's schooling outcomes and to explore channels through which the effect of mothers schooling is transmitted. Using matched data from the female participants of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79) and their children, we study the causal effect of mothers education on children's outcomes when they are aged nine to ten. We exploit geographical and intertemporal variation in mothers schooling cost at the time when the mother grew up. The data allows to control for mothers ability and family background factors. Our results indicate substantial intergenerational returns to education. We find that children's math test score and a measure of grade repetition are significantly affected by mothers education, but we do not find effects on an index of behavioural problems. The rich data set allows us to study different channels which may transmit the effect of mothers education on children's outcomes, including aspects of mother characteristics and parental investments. In particular, we find a significant effect of mothers education on the mothers age when she gave birth to her first child, on available family income and on the cognitive home environment provided by the parents. In line with related literature, we find IV results that are substantially higher than OLS results, indicating heterogeneity in returns.
Bibliography Citation
Carneiro, Pedro M., Costas Meghir and Matthias Parey. "Intergenerational Effects of Mothers Schooling on Children's Outcomes: Causal Links and Transmission Channels." Working Paper, Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), London, October 12, 2005.
16. Carneiro, Pedro M.
Meghir, Costas
Parey, Matthias
Maternal Education, Home Environments and the Development of Children and Adolescents
IZA Discussion Paper No. 3072, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), September 2007.
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Educational Aspirations/Expectations; Home Observation for Measurement of Environment (HOME); Intergenerational Patterns/Transmission; Mothers, Education; Parental Influences; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); School Progress; Variables, Instrumental

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

We study the intergenerational effects of maternal education on children's cognitive achievement, behavioral problems, grade repetition and obesity. We address endogeneity of maternal schooling by instrumenting with variation in schooling costs when the mother grew up. Using matched data from the female participants of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79) and their children, we can control for mother's ability and family background factors. Our results show substantial intergenerational returns to education. For children aged 7-8, for example, our IV results indicate that an additional year of mother's schooling increases the child's performance on a standardized math test by almost 0.1 of a standard deviation, and reduces the incidence of behavioral problems. Our data set allows us to study a large array of channels which may transmit the effect of maternal education to the child, including family environment and parental investments at different ages of the child. We find that income effects, delayed childbearing, and assortative mating are likely to be important, and we show that maternal education leads to substantial differences in maternal labor supply. We investigate heterogeneity in returns, and we present results focusing both on very early stages in the child's life as well as adolescent outcomes. We present a falsification exercise to support the validity of our instruments, and our results are found to be robust in a sensitivity analysis. We discuss policy implications and relate our findings to intergenerational mobility.
Bibliography Citation
Carneiro, Pedro M., Costas Meghir and Matthias Parey. "Maternal Education, Home Environments and the Development of Children and Adolescents." IZA Discussion Paper No. 3072, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), September 2007.
17. Carneiro, Pedro M.
Meghir, Costas
Parey, Matthias
Maternal Education, Home Environments and the Development of Children and Adolescents
Presented: Denver, CO, American Economic Association Annual Meeting, January 2011. Forthcoming: Journal of European Economic Association.
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: American Economic Association
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Behavioral Problems; Cognitive Development; Educational Aspirations/Expectations; Grade Retention/Repeat Grade; Home Observation for Measurement of Environment (HOME); Intergenerational Patterns/Transmission; Mothers, Education; Obesity; Parental Influences; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); School Progress; Variables, Instrumental

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

We study the intergenerational effects of maternal education on children's cognitive achievement, behavioral problems, grade repetition and obesity. We address endogeneity of maternal schooling by instrumenting with variation in schooling costs when the mother grew up. Using matched data from the female participants of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79) and their children, we can control for mother's ability and family background factors. Our results show substantial intergenerational returns to education. For children aged 7-8, for example, our IV results indicate that an additional year of mother's schooling increases the child's performance on a standardized math test by almost 0.1 of a standard deviation, and reduces the incidence of behavioral problems. Our data set allows us to study a large array of channels which may transmit the effect of maternal education to the child, including family environment and parental investments at different ages of the child. We find that income effects, delayed childbearing, and assortative mating are likely to be important, and we show that maternal education leads to substantial differences in maternal labor supply. We investigate heterogeneity in returns, and we present results focusing both on very early stages in the child's life as well as adolescent outcomes. We present a falsification exercise to support the validity of our instruments, and our results are found to be robust in a sensitivity analysis. We discuss policy implications and relate our findings to intergenerational mobility.
Bibliography Citation
Carneiro, Pedro M., Costas Meghir and Matthias Parey. "Maternal Education, Home Environments and the Development of Children and Adolescents." Presented: Denver, CO, American Economic Association Annual Meeting, January 2011. Forthcoming: Journal of European Economic Association.
18. Carneiro, Pedro M.
Meghir, Costas
Parey, Matthias
The Effect of Mother's Schooling on Children's Outcomes: Causal Links and Transmission Channels
Working Paper, University College London and Institute for Fiscal Studies, May 3, 2006.
Also: http://www.tinbergen.nl/cost/london/parey.pdf
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), London
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Educational Aspirations/Expectations; Home Observation for Measurement of Environment (HOME); Intergenerational Patterns/Transmission; Mothers, Education; Parental Influences; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); School Progress; Variables, Instrumental

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Several economists have recently tried to isolate the causal effect of parental schooling on child outcomes through the use of different empirical designs, analogous to those used to examine the impact of schooling on wages, namely twin studies and instrumental variables. In this paper we follow the latter strategy and estimate the effect of maternal schooling on children's outcomes. We use white children from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79), a rich dataset that contains detailed information on children outcomes at several ages, home environments and maternal characteristics. The available information allows to estimate the importance of maternal schooling for several outcomes of the child at different ages, and potential channels by which an increase in maternal education translates into improved child outcomes. We instrument mother's schooling with the presence of a public four year college in the county of residence at age 14, average tuition in public 4 year colleges in the county of residence at age 17, and average unemployment rate and blue collar wages in the state of residence at age 17.
Bibliography Citation
Carneiro, Pedro M., Costas Meghir and Matthias Parey. "The Effect of Mother's Schooling on Children's Outcomes: Causal Links and Transmission Channels." Working Paper, University College London and Institute for Fiscal Studies, May 3, 2006.
19. Heckman, James J.
Carneiro, Pedro M.
Human Capital Policy
NBER Working Paper No. 9495, National Bureau of Economic Research, February 2003.
Also: http://papers.nber.org/papers/W9495
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Behavioral Problems; Family Background and Culture; Family Income; Job Training; Life Cycle Research; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Racial Equality/Inequality; School Quality; Skill Formation; Skills; Tuition

This paper considers alternative policies for promoting skill formation that are targetted to different stages of the life cycle. We demonstrate the importance of both cognitive and noncognitive skills that are formed early in the life cycle in accounting for racial, ethnic and family background gaps in schooling and other dimensions of socioeconomic success. Most of the gaps in college attendance and delay are determined by early family factors. Children from better families and with high ability earn higher returns to schooling. We find only a limited role for tuition policy or family income supplements in eliminating schooling and college attendance gaps. At most 8% of American youth are credit constrained in the traditional usage of that term. The evidence points to a high return to early interventions and a low return to remedial or compensatory interventions later in the life cycle. Skill and ability beget future skill and ability. At current levels of funding, traditional policies like tuition subsidies, improvements in school quality, job training and tax rebates are unlikely to be effective in closing gaps.
Bibliography Citation
Heckman, James J. and Pedro M. Carneiro. "Human Capital Policy." NBER Working Paper No. 9495, National Bureau of Economic Research, February 2003.