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The causal effect of parents� schooling on children�s schooling in Europe. A new IV approach

Author

Listed:
  • Enkelejda Havari

    (Department of Economics, University Of Venice C� Foscari)

  • Marco Savegnago

    (Bank of Italy and University of Rome Tor Vergata)

Abstract

This paper estimates the causal effect of parental education on children�s education in 13 European countries, using representative data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). A novel instrumental variable approach is used to solve the endogeneity issue. We combine two instruments: parental birth order (indicator for being a first born) and Compulsory Schooling Laws (CSL). While CSL have been widely used in applied work, our contribution is to introduce parental birth order as instrument in the intergenerational mobility literature. We find that parental education has a positive, large and significant causal effect on children�s education. This finding is robust to the instrument chosen (birth order, CSL, or both), to sample selection and to several robustness checks.

Suggested Citation

  • Enkelejda Havari & Marco Savegnago, 2013. "The causal effect of parents� schooling on children�s schooling in Europe. A new IV approach," Working Papers 2013:30, Department of Economics, University of Venice "Ca' Foscari".
    • Handle: RePEc:ven:wpaper:2013:30
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Enkelejda Havari & Marco Savegnago, 2014. "The causal effect of parents’ schooling on children’s schooling in Europe. A new IV approach," CEIS Research Paper 315, Tor Vergata University, CEIS, revised 12 May 2014.
    2. d׳Hombres, Béatrice & Nunziata, Luca, 2016. "Wish you were here? Quasi-experimental evidence on the effect of education on self-reported attitude toward immigrants," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 201-224.
    3. Deole, Sumit S. & Zeydanli, Tugba, 2021. "Does education predict gender role attitudes?: Evidence from European datasets," GLO Discussion Paper Series 793, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    4. Marco Bertoni & Giorgio Brunello, 2016. "Later-borns Don’t Give Up: The Temporary Effects of Birth Order on European Earnings," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 53(2), pages 449-470, April.
    5. Nicolas Fleury & Fabrice Gilles, 2015. "A meta-regression analysis on intergenerational transmission of education: publication bias and genuine empirical effect," TEPP Working Paper 2015-02, TEPP.
    6. Nicolas Fleury & Fabrice Gilles, 2018. "The intergenerational transmission of education. A meta-regression analysis," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(6), pages 557-573, November.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    intergenerational transmission; causality; birth order; education; Europe;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J01 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - Labor Economics: General
    • J6 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers
    • I2 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education
    • I24 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Inequality

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