This study uses population register data to examine the relationship between birth order and educational attainment in Sweden, and demonstrates that while the causal effect of birth order on educational attainment is negative, later born children actually perform better. The explanation for this...

There is a rich history of using data from twins and from adoptees to control for genetic influences and thereby examine the impact of environment on children's outcomes. The behavioral genetics model is the workhorse of this literature and for a variety of outcomes including IQ scores and...

We analyse the evolving impact of family background on educational attainment using administrative data on 2,417,460 individuals from 1,341,403 families born in the Netherlands between 1966 and 1995. Comparisons between parents and their children reveal intergenerational elasticities between...