Calvó-Armengol, Antoni and Jackson, Matthew O. (2005) Like Father, Like Son: Social Networks, Human Capital Investment, and Social Mobility. Social Science Working Paper, 1242. California Institute of Technology , Pasadena, CA. (Unpublished) https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20170802-113029102
![]() |
PDF (SSWP 1242 - Nov. 2005)
- Submitted Version
See Usage Policy. 313kB |
Use this Persistent URL to link to this item: https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20170802-113029102
Abstract
We build a model where an individual sees higher returns to investments in human capital when their neighbors in a social network have higher levels of human capital. We show that the correlation of human capital across generations of a given family is directly related to the sensitivity of individual investment decisions to the state of the social network. Increasing the sensitivity leads to increased intergenerational correlation, as well as more costly investment decisions on average in the society. We calibrate a simple threshold version of the model to data from a variety of EU nations. We also show how directly analyzing sensitivity of decisions to social circumstances can lead to information that is not captured by intergenerational correlation.
Item Type: | Report or Paper (Working Paper) | ||||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
ORCID: |
| ||||||||||||||||
Additional Information: | Support from the Fundación Ramón Areces, the Spanish Ministry of Education through grant BEC2002-02130, and the Barcelona Economics Program CREA is gratefully acknowledged. Financial support from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Lee Center for Advanced Networking, the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences, and the NSF under grant SES-0316493 is gratefully acknowledged. We are very grateful to Simona Comi for making her data available to us. We also thank Rachel Kranton and Alison Watts for helpful conversations and discussions. | ||||||||||||||||
Group: | Social Science Working Papers | ||||||||||||||||
Funders: |
| ||||||||||||||||
Subject Keywords: | Social Mobility, Networks, Labor Markets, Human Capital | ||||||||||||||||
Series Name: | Social Science Working Paper | ||||||||||||||||
Issue or Number: | 1242 | ||||||||||||||||
Classification Code: | JEL: A14, J64, J31, J70 | ||||||||||||||||
Record Number: | CaltechAUTHORS:20170802-113029102 | ||||||||||||||||
Persistent URL: | https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20170802-113029102 | ||||||||||||||||
Usage Policy: | No commercial reproduction, distribution, display or performance rights in this work are provided. | ||||||||||||||||
ID Code: | 79764 | ||||||||||||||||
Collection: | CaltechAUTHORS | ||||||||||||||||
Deposited By: | Hanna Storlie | ||||||||||||||||
Deposited On: | 02 Aug 2017 18:46 | ||||||||||||||||
Last Modified: | 03 Oct 2019 18:23 |
Repository Staff Only: item control page