Massive cross-sectional evidence exists indicating that children of more educated parents outperform their schoolmates … for identification within the same data: cousins with twin parents and adopted children. We find no effect of mothers …' education on children's school performance using the children-of-twins approach. However, for adopted children, mother …

, even though displacement episodes early in children's lives have the largest impacts on household income (because they … persist for many years), displacement episodes occurring in the children's teenage years have the largest effects on human … capital accumulation. We show that most of the effects operate through the intensive margin of schooling, and that children …

negative direct effect on mid-childhood and teenage outcomes. But as mothers' work hours increase, income will rise. We ask … whether income can compensate for the negative effect of hours by adopting a novel mediation analysis that exploits exogenous … variation in both mothers' hours and family income in pre-school years. As expected we find a negative direct effect of an …

More able parents tend to have more able children. While few would question the validity of this statement, there is … estimated elasticity of intergenerational transmission of income of approximately .2. -- Ability ; intergenerational mobility …

The choice of a college major plays a critical role in determining the future earnings of college graduates. Students … survey students about what their expected earnings would be both in the major they have chosen and in counterfactual majors …. We also elicit students' subjective assessments of their abilities in chosen and counterfactual majors. We estimate a …

Parents gauge school quality in part by the level of student achievement and a school's racial mix. The importance of … cutoffs for the most selective of these schools move from above-average schools to schools with students drawn from the … extreme upper tail. Exam school students can also expect to study with fewer nonwhite classmates than unsuccessful applicants …

using scores from IQ tests taken outside of school, at the time of military enrolment, and measured when students are around …

of children from poorer families. -- birth weight ; twins ; education ; IQ ; earnings …