Brother correlations in earnings in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden compared to the United States

Abstract

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Cognitive skills, non-cognitive skills, and family background: evidence from sibling correlations

“…Any differences in the influence of family background on cognitive and non-cognitive skills may help to explain the observed cross-country differences in the importance of family background for economic outcomes. Björklund et al (2002) and Schnitzlein (2014) report significant cross-national differences in sibling correlations in earnings. In particular, those researchers find that family background is more important in the US and Germany than in the Scandinavian countries.…”

“…The results show, for example, that intergenerational correlations explain less than half of the influence of family background on earnings (Mazumder, 2008). Moreover, research provides evidence of remarkable cross-country differences in sibling correlations in education and earnings (Björklund et al, 2002;Schnitzlein, 2014). 5 These cross-country differences might be attributed to different institutional settings in these countries, but the exact mechanisms remain unclear.…”

How important is cultural background for the level of intergenerational mobility?

“…The estimated brother correlations for Danish natives show the well known result that IM is very high in Denmark (Björklund et al, 2002). Only about 17 percent of inequality in permanent earnings can be attributed to family and community factors (first element in bold type row of Table 2).…”

“…Björklund et al (2002)) show that there are substantial differences in the level of IM for different types of welfare states. As in international comparison institutional factors and cultural background are change conjoined it is not clear which group causes the differences in the level of IM.…”

Should I stay or should I go? Sibling effects in household formation

“…We keep pairs of siblings one year after the sibling built up an independent household (79 out of 6,435 observations) and even two years after the sibling built up a household (6 out of 6,435 observations). 11 The panel is unbalanced: individuals who become 18 during the survey period enter the sample only after they turn 18. Similarly, individuals who become 34 during the survey period exit the sample as soon as they turn 34.…”