Andrei Munteanu

@andrei-econ.bsky.social

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Assistant Professor of Economics @ the University of Québec in Montréal (UQAM) | Postdoc @ Harvard CID Education, labor, applied micro https://andrei-munteanu-econ.github.io/

We estimate the intergenerational effects of compulsory schooling (CS) laws in the United States (1875 to 1940), exploiting the staggered roll-out of state CS laws and using difference-in-differences and instrumental variable (IV) approaches in a linked panel of full-count US census data. Exposure to CS laws led to comparable increases in education levels for both directly affected individuals and their children, suggesting a strong intergenerational persistence of schooling gains. These gains were largely concentrated among whites, with no significant intergenerational effects for black Americans. Within families, parental exposure to CS had the greatest effect on the eldest and least educated children. We identify several mechanisms that could explain persistence in the effects of CS: i) parental labor market outcomes (e.g. mothers sorting into higher education and higher income occupations) ii) assortative mating on education, and iii) geographic mobility to higher human capital neighborhoods.