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American Mobility and the Expansion of Public Education

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 March 2011

John Parman
John Parman*
Affiliation:
Postdoctoral Fellow in Economics, Department of Economics, University of California, Davis, One Shields Avenue, Davis, CA 95616. E-mail: [email protected].
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Abstract

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.

Type
ARTICLES
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 71 , Issue 1 , March 2011 , pp. 105 - 132
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 2011

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Supplementary material: File

Parman Supplementary Appendix

Parman Supplementary Appendix

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Supplementary material: PDF

Parman Supplementary Appendix

Parman Supplementary Appendix

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