Tan, Rachel Yi;
(2025)
Essays on inequality and human capital.
Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).
Preview |
Text
PhD_Thesis_Rachel_Tan.pdf - Submitted Version Download (4MB) | Preview |
Abstract
This thesis explores the interplay between inequality and human capital across three distinct but connected chapters. Together, these chapters offer insights into how family background, perceptions, and behavioural responses contribute to persistent disparities in human capital development. Chapter One delves into the mechanisms driving intergenerational earnings transmission among White, Black, and Hispanic families in the United States. It highlights how factors like educational attainment, cognitive skills, and the quality of the home environment contribute differently across racial groups. Notably, these channels account for a greater share of income persistence among Black and Hispanic families compared to Whites. For Black families, educational attainment and cognitive skills play a more important role than for Whites and Hispanics. Home environment emerges as a key factor for Hispanics, but not for Whites and Blacks. Chapter Two focuses on parental beliefs about their children’s skills, exploring the impact of these beliefs on parental investments and how these beliefs evolve over time. The analysis uncovers three main insights: (1) parental beliefs may be misaligned with actual skills but become more accurate as children age; (2) there are no significant effects of beliefs on investments for both the high SES and low SES parents; and (3) while parental beliefs are persistent over time, they are responsive to changes in children’s skill levels. Chapter Three quantifies the contribution of parental beliefs about child skill to the SES skill gap. This is achieved by estimating a dynamic model of parental investment that incorporates belief dynamics. The model features two-way interaction between beliefs and investments, providing a channel for early beliefs to influence future beliefs, investments and skills. The model reveals that differences in parental beliefs contribute only modestly to the socio-economic skill gap, suggesting that other forces are more dominant in shaping inequality.
| Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | Ph.D |
| Title: | Essays on inequality and human capital |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author 2025. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS > Dept of Economics |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10211696 |
Archive Staff Only
 |
View Item |
