American Mobility and the Expansion of Public Education

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: University of California System; University of California Davis
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC HISTORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-0507
• DOI: 10.1017/S0022050711000040
• 发表日期: 2011
• 页码: 105-132
• 关键词: child labor laws; measurement error; income

摘要

Educational institutions and intergenerational mobility are closely related; access to schools is a major determinant of a child's future success. This article offers new insight into this relationship with a study of mobility at the beginning of the United States' expansion of public schools in the early twentieth century. A new intergenerational data set is used to establish high rates of income mobility at the start of the century and a negative relationship between school quality and mobility. Educational attainment estimates reveal that this was a product of high-income families being more responsive to improving schools than poor families.