This paper studies the influence of family, schools and neighborhoods on life-cycle earnings inequality. We develop an earnings dynamics model linking brothers, schoolmates and teenage parish neighbors using population register data for Denmark. We exploit differences in the timing of family...

We extend the Lucas' 1988 model introducing two classes of agents with heterogeneous skills, discount factors and initial human capital endowments. We consider two regimes according to the planner's political constraints. In the first regime, that we call meritocracy, the planner faces...

Drawing on the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we document a startling empirical pattern: the career earnings premium from a four-year college degree (relative to a high school diploma) for persons from low-income backgrounds is considerably less than it is for those from higher-income...

What explains the large cross-country variation in the wage premium for higher education? Economic analyses of wage differentials by education point to technological change and globalisation, but we know little about the impact of different types of public policies. We argue that public...