DIAL Working Papers

The intergenerational transmission of family dissolution – and how it varies by social class origin and birth cohort

This research investigates whether the social class of divorced parents has any bearing on the likelihood of their children also getting divorced. Specifically it seeks to establish whether having more … Read more

The Economics and Econometrics of Gene-Environment Interplay

Economists and social scientists have debated the relative importance of nature (one’s genes) and nurture (one’s environment) for decades, if not centuries. This debate can now be informed by the … Read more

The health impacts of universal early childhood interventions: evidence from Sure Start

This research evaluates the short- and medium-term health impacts of Sure Start, a large-scale and universal early childhood programme in England. The programme provided Sure Start Centres across the country … Read more

Formation of Children’s Cognitive and Socio- Emotional Skills: Is All Parental Time Equal?

Authors: Hélène Le Forner,
Series: Issue: 12 2021
Themes:

This paper asks how time spent with one or both parents can affect children’s social, emotional and verbal skills. It finds the effect of doing educational activities with the father … Read more

The Intergenerational Elasticity of Earnings: Exploring the Mechanisms

Rich parents have rich children. Why is that? This paper evaluates several different potential channels that might explain the persistence in earnings between parents and children. In particular, the researchers … Read more

The association of maternal education on children’s language skills and its link to social inequality, descriptive analysis from three European cohort studies

Social inequality is a persistent global issue which many countries, governments, and policymakers aim to address. The development of language and communication skills during the early years of a child’s … Read more

The effect of COVID-19-related school closures on students’ well-being: Evidence from Danish nationwide panel data

New research from Denmark suggests that in some respects students’ wellbeing improved during the Spring 2020 lockdown, and that this effect was strongest among students of lower socioeconomic status. The … Read more

Facts and Myths in the Popular Debate about Inequality in Sweden

This paper presents a critical assessment of the public debate on income and wealth inequality in Sweden. The authors scrutinize ten often-heard claims in the debate by contrasting them against … Read more

Dynamic complementarity in skill production: Evidence from genetic endowments and birth order

This study looks at how nature and nurture interact in influencing individuals academic attainment, and finds support for the theory that early life parental inputs increase later gains – especially … Read more