Selection in the Educational System and in Social Elites: a Comparison between France and the United States.

The article describes the changes in educational and occupational attainment in France and the United States across the cohorts born from 1905 to 1951. To make a valid estimation of the variation in the effects of social background, the authors use a non-linear discrete-time model that controls for the unobserved determinants that could confound the measure of the effect of family resources on the different schooling transitions. Moreover, they propose a new measure of the impact of labor market incentives on schooling transitions in order to separate the effect of students' self-selection and the role of the intrinsic selectivity of the school system.