Intergenerational Poverty in America

Catalog description

In the US, the children of poor parents are eight times more likely to grow up to be poor than the children of high-income parents. What accounts for this? In this course we try to answer this question by examining how poverty influences child development and, ultimately, their income and wellbeing in adulthood. We will begin the course with an overview of poverty and intergenerational mobility in America, looking at historical trends and placing the US in international context. To understand why poverty is persistent across generations in the US, we begin with the economic model of skill formation in childhood. We then consider the existing research exploring how a number of factors explain the intergenerational persistence of poverty, including parental time, pollution, infant and child health, the justice system, neighborhoods, stress, and preschool/education systems. This course will involve reading and discussion of economic research and a final independent research project that will require data analysis and the application of empirical methods students have learned in econ 1629/1630.