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Petter Lundborg. Photo.

Petter Lundborg

Professor

Petter Lundborg. Photo.

On the Family Origins of Human Capital Formation : Evidence from Donor Children

Author

  • Petter Lundborg
  • Erik Plug
  • Astrid Würtz Rasmussen

Summary, in English

We introduce a novel strategy to study the intergenerational transmission of human capital skills, net of genetic skill transfers. For this purpose, we use unique Danish data on children conceived through sperm and egg donation in in vitro fertilization treatments to estimate the relationship between child test scores and parental years of schooling. Because the assignment of donors is not selective, these parental schooling estimates allow for a causal nurture interpretation. Once we take account of genes, we find that only the education of mothers matters: the association between father’s education and child test scores (in reading and math) is insignificant and practically zero, whereas the association between mother’s education and child test scores (in reading, not in math) is significant and large, and as large as the association we estimate for mothers of non-donor children.

Department/s

  • Centre for Economic Demography
  • Department of Economics

Publishing year

2025-10-01

Language

English

Pages

3245-3275

Publication/Series

Review of Economic Studies

Volume

92

Issue

5

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Topic

  • Economics

Keywords

  • Donor
  • Human capital
  • Intergenerational mobility
  • Nature
  • Nurture

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 0034-6527