Persistence Despite Revolutions

The Intergenerational Transmission of College: Evidence from the 1973 Coup in Chile

“…Remarkably, all of the children we observe in the 2017 census reached college age decades after the country returned to democracy. This type of persistence of socioeconomic outcomes within families after critical junctures is similar to findings in other contexts (Guirkinger et al, 2021;Alesina et al, 2022). Looking at lower levels of education among children of affected parents, we find statistically significant but economically smaller downward kinks in the last four years of secondary education (ages 15-18).…”

“…Our focus on parent-child pairs also makes this paper related to the literature documenting that socioeconomic outcomes persist within families over time. Previous research has documented persistent status and social mobility patterns across different time horizons and in different sub-populations across the world (Barone and Mocetti, 2020;Ager et al, 2021;Abramitzky et al, 2021;Alesina et al, 2022).…”

“…They also include the introduction of controls over the student body, as happened in China during the Cultural Revolution and also in Nazi Germany(Waldinger, 2010(Waldinger, , 2011Roland and Yang, 2017;Li and Meng, 2020;Alesina et al, 2022). The shutdown of Central European University by Hungarian strongman Viktor Orban in 2018 provides a more recent example.…”

Wealth of Two Nations: The U.S. Racial Wealth Gap, 1860-2020

“…as economic elites one generation after the Civil War (Ager, Boustan, and Eriksson, 2021). The Chinese Communist and Cultural Revolutions greatly reduced wealth and income inequality in the mid-to-late 20th century; however, scholars have found that the pre-revolution elite have once again emerged on top (Alesina et al, 2020). Finally, those studying the impacts of large wealth transfers have also found their effect to be transient (Bleakley and Ferrie, 2016).…”

The intergenerational transmission of higher education: Evidence from the 1973 coup in Chile

“…Shortly after the coup, the Pinochet dictatorship (1973)(1974)(1975)(1976)(1977)(1978)(1979)(1980)(1981)(1982)(1983)(1984)(1985)(1986)(1987)(1988)(1989)(1990) took control of all higher education institutions and promoted a large reduction in college seats. This capture of higher education and the elimination of democratic structures shares many features with other authoritarian regimes (Connelly and Grüttner, 2005), including the Soviet Union in 1922, Nazi Germany in 1933, and China during the Cultural Revolution (Waldinger, 2010(Waldinger, , 2011Roland and Yang, 2017;Li and Meng, 2022;Alesina et al, 2022). The shutdown of the Central European University by Hungarian strongman Viktor Orban in 2018 is a more recent example.…”