On the Family Origins of Human Capital Formation: Evidence from Donor Children
利用丹麦捐精捐卵儿童的独特数据，分离遗传因素后，发现只有母亲的教育年限与孩子的阅读成绩显著正相关，而父亲的教育影响几乎为零。
Abstract 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.