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Author: Pfeffer, Fabian T.
Resulting in 3 citations.
1. Killewald, Alexandra
Pfeffer, Fabian T.
For Richer: The Effects of Marriage on Wealth Accumulation
Presented: Denver CO, Population Association of America Annual Meeting, April 2018
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Population Association of America
Keyword(s): Marriage; Modeling, Marginal Structural; Wealth

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

We investigate the effects of marriage on individuals' midlife wealth. Establishing the importance of marriage as a wealth-generating process is challenging because marriage and wealth are dynamic processes with reciprocal effects: marriage is both the result of prior wealth and a potential determinant of future wealth. To estimate the total causal effect of years spent married on wealth, we therefore apply marginal structural models. Using the NLSY79, we show that time spent married has positive effects on individuals' wealth at midlife but that accounting for dynamic selection into and out of marriage reduces these effects substantially. Ignoring the asset-pooling effect of marriage, the effects of marriage on wealth are small. However, the effects are also heterogeneous: women and whites gain more in absolute terms from each additional year spent married than do men and African Americans.
Bibliography Citation
Killewald, Alexandra and Fabian T. Pfeffer. "For Richer: The Effects of Marriage on Wealth Accumulation." Presented: Denver CO, Population Association of America Annual Meeting, April 2018.
2. Pfeffer, Fabian T.
Intergenerational Wealth Effects in the United States and Germany
Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Wisconsin - Madison, June 2010
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79, NLSY79 Young Adult
Publisher: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses (PQDT)
Keyword(s): German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP); Germany, German; Intergenerational Patterns/Transmission; Mobility, Social; Neighborhood Effects; Social Capital; Socioeconomic Status (SES); Wealth

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

Studies of intergenerational social mobility investigate which socio-economic characteristics of families impact the life chances of children and how they do so. Typically, research in this area conceptualizes and measures family background as some combination of parental education, parental occupation, and family income -- the holy trinity of stratification research. One important feature of economic circumstances that is often overlooked in these studies is family wealth, or net worth. Wealth is a dimension of economic well-being that suffers particularly stark inequalities and thus its neglect is troubling.

This dissertation investigates how and why inequalities in wealth translate into inequalities in opportunities for the next generation. Using nationally representative longitudinal data from the United States and Germany, I provide a detailed description and explanation of intergenerational wealth effects across two very different institutional contexts. In both countries, I find a strong relationship between parental wealth and children's attainment outcomes. In the United States, parents' net worth, financial wealth, and home wealth exert positive effects on the opportunities of children, both across the entire educational career and beyond that for early occupational attainment. In Germany, wealth inequalities in opportunities occur chiefly in the attainment of the selective secondary school degree that confers access to a college career.

I draw on an econometric modeling approach, labeled future treatment strategy, to increase the confidence in the causal relationship between wealth and educational outcomes. This is the foundation for the direct empirical assessment of the causal mechanisms underlying the observed wealth effects. I show that, in the United States, some but not a large part of the link between wealth and educational outcomes accrues from the advantageous neighborhood conditions to which wealthy families have access. I also propose and add empirical support to another mechanism, namely the insurance or safety net function of wealth, according to which parental wealth reduces the potential consequences of failure in the attainment process and thereby changes some fundamental parameters of the educational decision-making process.

The insurance function of wealth also helps explain the finding of substantial wealth effects in both institutional contexts. It appears that it would require a much more extensive system of "social wealth" than that found in either the United States or Germany to reduce the importance of private wealth as a safety net for children. A range of promising policy alternatives that directly target the distribution of wealth is shown to be also largely absent in both nations.

Bibliography Citation
Pfeffer, Fabian T. Intergenerational Wealth Effects in the United States and Germany. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Wisconsin - Madison, June 2010.
3. Pfeffer, Fabian T.
Status Attainment and Wealth in the United States and Germany
In: Persistence, Privilege, and Parenting: The Comparative Study of Intergenerational Mobility. R. Erikson, M. Jäntti and T. Smeeding, eds., New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2011: 109-137.
Also: https://www.russellsage.org/publications/persistence-privilege-and-parenting
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79, NLSY79 Young Adult
Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation
Keyword(s): Assets; Cross-national Analysis; German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP); Germany, German; Intergenerational Patterns/Transmission; Mobility, Social; Neighborhood Effects; Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID); Social Capital; Socioeconomic Status (SES); Wealth

Research on intergenerational mobility typically conceptualizes and measures family background as any combination of parental education, parental occupation, and family income. One important feature of economic circumstances that is often overlooked in these studies is family wealth, or net worth. Wealth is a dimension of economic well-being that suffers particularly stark inequalities, and thus its neglect is troubling. Severe inequalities in familial wealth may well create unequal opportunities for children over and above those created by other socio-economic characteristics of families. Recent research has begun to document strong and independent effects of parental wealth on children's educational opportunities for the United States. This paper extends this research by documenting the role of wealth for the entire status attainment process, that is, not only educational but also occupational attainment. In addition, it assesses the degree to which the association between parental wealth and attainment differs by national context. Drawing on national panel datasets – the NLSY-79, the PSID and the GSOEP – this paper investigates how the link between wealth inequality and inequality in opportunities differs between the United States and Germany.
Bibliography Citation
Pfeffer, Fabian T. "Status Attainment and Wealth in the United States and Germany" In: Persistence, Privilege, and Parenting: The Comparative Study of Intergenerational Mobility. R. Erikson, M. Jäntti and T. Smeeding, eds., New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2011: 109-137.