O brother, where start thou? Sibling spillovers on college and major choice in four countries
The result's identifiers
Result code in IS VaVaI
<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F00216208%3A11640%2F21%3A00544487" target="_blank" >RIV/00216208:11640/21:00544487 - isvavai.cz</a>
Alternative codes found
RIV/67985998:_____/21:00549906
Result on the web
<a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjab006" target="_blank" >https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjab006</a>
DOI - Digital Object Identifier
<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjab006" target="_blank" >10.1093/qje/qjab006</a>
Alternative languages
Result language
angličtina
Original language name
O brother, where start thou? Sibling spillovers on college and major choice in four countries
Original language description
Family and social networks are widely believed to influence important life decisions, but causal identification of those effects is notoriously challenging. Using data from Chile, Croatia, Sweden, and the United States, we study within-family spillovers in college and major choice across a variety of national contexts. Exploiting college-specific admissions thresholds that directly affect older but not younger siblings’ college options, we show that in all four countries a meaningful portion of younger siblings follow their older sibling to the same college or college-major combination. Older siblings are followed regardless of whether their target and counterfactual options have large, small, or even negative differences in quality. Spillover effects disappear, however, if the older sibling drops out of college, suggesting that older siblings’ college experiences matter. That siblings influence important human capital investment decisions across such varied contexts suggests that our findings are not an artifact of particular institutional detail but a more generalizable description of human behavior. Causal links between the postsecondary paths of close peers may partly explain persistent college enrollment inequalities between social groups, and this suggests that interventions to improve college access may have multiplier effects.
Czech name
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Czech description
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Classification
Type
J<sub>imp</sub> - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database
CEP classification
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OECD FORD branch
50202 - Applied Economics, Econometrics
Result continuities
Project
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Continuities
I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace
Others
Publication year
2021
Confidentiality
S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů
Data specific for result type
Name of the periodical
Quarterly Journal of Economics
ISSN
0033-5533
e-ISSN
1531-4650
Volume of the periodical
136
Issue of the periodical within the volume
3
Country of publishing house
US - UNITED STATES
Number of pages
56
Pages from-to
1831-1886
UT code for WoS article
000672777600010
EID of the result in the Scopus database
2-s2.0-85110618736