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Journal of Political Economy Vol. 125 No. 2 2017

Economic Uncertainty, Parental Selection, and Children’s Educational Outcomes

Arnaud Chevalier1,2; Olivier Marie3,2,4,5,6

1 Royal Holloway University of London · 2 IZA - Institute of Labor Economics · 3 International Labour Organization · 4 Tinbergen Institute · 5 Maastricht University · 6 Erasmus University Rotterdam

open access

Abstract

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, East Germany experienced an unprecedented temporary drop in fertility driven by economic uncertainty. We show that the children born during this transition period performed worse on a range of educational outcomes from an early age onward. The mothers of these children exhibit personal characteristics and family structures consistent with negative parental selection. Investigating the underlying mechanisms reveals that parental educational input and emotional attachment were also lower for these children. Finally, our ability to compare siblings means that we can reject that our results stem from a time of birth effect.

DOI
10.1086/690830
Volume
125
Issue
2
Pages
393-430
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

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