Book/Printed Material The impact of family income on child achievement
About this Item
Title
- The impact of family income on child achievement
Summary
- "Understanding the consequences of growing up poor for a child's well-being is an important research question, but one that is difficult to answer due to the potential endogeneity of family income. Past estimates of the effect of family income on child development have often been plagued by omitted variable bias and measurement error. In this paper, we use a fixed effect instrumental variables strategy to estimate the causal effect of income on children's math and reading achievement. Our primary source of identification comes from the large, non-linear changes in the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) over the last two decades. The largest of these changes increased family income by as much as 20%, or approximately $2,100. Using a panel of over 6,000 children matched to their mothers from National Longitudinal Survey of Youth datasets allows us to address problems associated with unobserved heterogeneity and endogenous transitory income shocks as well as measurement error in income. Our baseline estimates imply that a $1,000 increase in income raises math test scores by 2.1% and reading test scores by 3.6% of a standard deviation. The results are even stronger when looking at children from disadvantaged families who are affected most by the large changes in the EITC, and are robust to a variety of alternative specifications"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site.
Names
- Dahl, Gordon Boyack, 1968-
- Lochner, Lance
- National Bureau of Economic Research
Created / Published
- Cambridge, MA : National Bureau of Economic Research, c2005.
Headings
- - Academic achievement--Economic aspects--United States
- - Education--Economic aspects--United States
- - Poor children--Education--United States
Notes
- - Title from PDF file as viewed on 5/5/2005.
- - Includes bibliographical references.
- - Also available in print.
- - Mode of access: World Wide Web.
- - System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader.
Call Number/Physical Location
- HB1
Digital Id
- https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gdc/gdcebookspublic.2005617850
- http://papers.nber.org/papers/W11279 External
Library of Congress Control Number
- 2005617850
Access Advisory
- Unrestricted online access
Online Format
- image