Intergenerational Persistence in the Effects of Compulsory Schooling ∗ Titus

Intergenerational Persistence in the Effects of Compulsory Schooling∗ Titus Galama† Andrei Munteanu‡ Kevin Thom§ April 13, 2023 Abstract We examine the effects of parental exposure to compulsory schooling laws on the socio- economic outcomes of their children, exploiting the staggered roll-out of state com- pulsory schooling (CS) laws in the second half of the nineteenth and beginning of the twent. [...] First, measuring parental exposure to compulsory schooling requires data on the birth year and birth state of the parents of the “children” in the 1940 Census. [...] Survey items from the censuses then allow us to determine the year of birth and state of birth of the parents of the 1940 respondents that we are able to link in this way. [...] The effect of parental exposure to compulsory schooling laws βc on the child is here identified across children who live in the state and are born in the same year, but whose parental exposure to compulsory schooling - which varies at the parental state of birth s′ and year of birth y′ level - varies. [...] Because of changes in the questions asked in the 1910 and 1940 censuses, the effects on some of the variables can only be measured in one of the census years.