Dynastic human capital, ethnic capital, and intergenerational mobility
Abstract:
What determines the slow long-term convergence in educational and labor market outcomes between immigrant groups and between immigrants and natives? One argument put forward is that “ethnic capital”, or factors associated with ethnic or cultural background, lead to persistent gaps across generations (Borjas, 1992) The main innovation of this paper is that we merge the Borjas-framework with the framework laid out in Adermon et al. (2021), thereby incorporating the role of the extended family (dynastic capital), in addition to the nuclear family and the ethnic capital, in explaining intergenerational group convergence. We investigate these issues using administrative data on education and income for two and three generations of immigrants and natives, and their relatives, and detailed data on source country for immigrant ancestors. We find that the role of ethnic capital in explaining group convergence, relative to natives, decreases or is eliminated when we allow a role for dynastic capital.
About Mikael Lindhal:
Mikael Lindhal is a Professor of Economics at the University of Gothenburg. He received his PhD in economics at Stockholm University in 2000. His research interests are in the area of empirical labor economics, with a special focus on questions within the economics of education and intergenerational mobility. His current research is focused on (1) income inequality and intergenerational transmission (2) dynastic and ethnic human capital (3) the intergenerational health-SES gradient and (4) students’ expectations about future labor market and other outcomes. He has previously studied the role of important educational reforms in Sweden and other countries and the underlying mechanisms for the intergenerational transmission of human capital. His work has been published in journals such as AER, QJE, JEL, REStat, EJ, AEJ:Economic Policy, as well as in leading field journals. His work has, in part, been funded by grants from the European Research Council and the Swedish Research Council. He was the holder of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences special research position in Economic Sciences (financed with support from the Torsten and Ragnar Söderberg Foundation) 2010-2015 and of Torsten Söderbergs forskningsprofessur vid Handelshögskolan i Göteborg 2017-2020.
Language: English
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Supported by the Luxembourg National Research Fund (FNR) 17931929