We study the evolution of racial educational inequality across US states from 1940 to 2000. We show that throughout this period, despite evidence of convergence, the racial gap in attainment between blacks and whites has been persistently determined by the initial gap. We obtain these results...

We develop a model that gives some microfoundation to the impact of residential neighborhood on children’s educational attainment and then test it using the UK National Child Development Study. We find that, for high-educated parents, the better the quality of the neighborhood in terms of...

We investigate the racial gap in test scores between white and non-white students in Britain both in levels and differences across the school years. We find that there is a substantial racial gap in test scores, especially between ages 7 and 11, and a less severe one between ages 11 and 16. It...