Lukas Althoff

📚 Public education made America great. In a new SIEPR Policy Brief, @lalthoff.bsky.social describes what research, including his own, says about universal schooling's vital role in enabling the #AmericanDream and why renewed investment is critical.

tinyurl.com/3czmc49t

#EconSky #EduSky

Lukas Althoff (Stanford University) The RFBerlin Applied Economics Seminar series brings leading researchers to Berlin to share their latest work and engage with our community. We are pleased to welcome Lukas Althoff (Stanford Universit...

We are very excited to host @lalthoff.bsky.social in our Applied Economics Seminar series this week, presenting "Race-Blind Policy and Racial Inequality: Long-Run Effects of the GI Bill".
🕑 14:00 – 15:15, Tuesday 1 July 2025
📍Gormannstrasse 22, 10119 Berlin

@siepr.bsky.social is hiring a predoc to work with the Lab and @erikbryn.bsky.social! Duties include supporting development of data infrastructure, developing and maintaining data tables on measures of the workforce, and contributing to research projects.

siepr.stanford.edu/programs/sie...

Eviction has spillover effects on children, with particularly negative effects for boys and older kids. These effects may be moderated by access to family support networks, from Collinson, Dutz, @johneric.bsky.social, Mader, Tannenbaum, and van Dijk https://www.nber.org/papers/w33659

Congratulations Reka!

Guido W. Imbens named director of Stanford Data Science The Nobel laureate will lead a community of faculty, students, scholars, and staff passionate about data science research and educational opportunities.

Please join us in congratulating SIEPR Senior Fellow and 2021 winner of the @nobelprize.bsky.social in Economic Sciences Guido Imbens on his appointment to Faculty Director of Stanford University Data Science. news.stanford.edu/stories/2025...
#AcademicSky #EconSky

Join us for a panel on standardized testing, college admissions, and social mobility. Experts will explore the role of standardized tests in education, meritocracy in admissions, and how to address social and educational injustices.

🔗Register here: bit.ly/3QGbAQN

#CollegeAdmissions #Meritocracy

Yes we do.

Ending slavery led to a huge boost in Black Americans’ mobility, but the beginning of Jim Crow reversed some of those gains.

In contrast, white mobility surged during the Jim Crow era, as schooling became near-universal for white children during this period.

The message is clear: America's mobility wasn't accidental—it resulted from public investments in mass education, breaking barriers and enabling children to thrive regardless of their family background.

Full paper: lukasalthoff.github.io/pdf/igm_moth...

A key empirical contribution is our new census panel (1850–1950)— leveraging historical admin. data to include women despite name changes. It is the most representative census panel available & comprises 186,000,000 linked records.

Now publicly available: github.com/lukasalthoff...

Among our methodological contributions is a latent variable approach that uncovers rank-rank mobility from binary data (e.g., literacy). It can also address limitations common in modern data, such as coarsening & top-coding.

We extensively validate this method using modern data.

Including mothers in mobility studies is key to understanding the US's path to opportunity. It alters conclusions, such as the South appearing rel. mobile in father-son comparisons, but actually being the least mobile due to scarce schooling & reliance on maternal human capital.

Income mobility rose in tandem with human capital mobility over this period. This rise in income mobility is also uniquely accounted for by the changing role of maternal human capital.

Before mass schooling, mothers were children's primary educators at home. Schooling reduced dependence on maternal human capital, previously the most important predictor of children's outcomes.

Causal evidence from mandatory schooling laws support this conclusion.

Mobility surged, but the timing differed by race consistent with schooling gaps.

White mobility surged after 1880 as school attendance rose from 60% to 90%, cementing US's lead in (white) mass schooling. Black mobility surged post-slavery but fell after 1880 (Jim Crow era).

We introduce a new approach to measuring mobility that simultaneously considers multiple parental inputs, including both parents' human capital.

Mobility = Variation in child outcomes unaccounted for by parental background.

How did the US become a land of opportunity? In a new paper, we show that the country's pioneering role in mass education was key to its rise in intergenerational mobility from 1850 to 1950.

"America's Rise in Human Capital Mobility"
with Harriet Brookes Gray & Hugo Reichardt

I am opening a postdoc position connected to the FamilyMacro research project at the LSE. This is a one-year position that could be extended for two more years. If interested, please contact me!

#EconSky @cfmuk.bsky.social

jobs.lse.ac.uk/Vacancies/W/...

Kenneth Arrow’s Last Theorem: Why do the most patient individuals dictate environmental policy in the long run? Let’s explore this fascinating result about efficiency and time preferences. 🧵 www.mechanism-design.org/arch/v009-1/...

We've significantly updated our paper on modeling + measuring systemic discrimination! Check it out:

www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/ab5yx...

(cc @aleximas.bsky.social + @aislinnbohren.bsky.social!)

A short 🧵 on what's new...

For those who are interested, here are the Nobel prize lectures in economics. Thank you.
www.youtube.com/live/YcuxbYU...

Congratulations! 🎉

Fascinating paper on where 6000 global elites went to college. Billionaires, CEOs, heads of state, central bankers, etc.

In a word: Harvard.

Fully 10% of global elites went to Harvard. Elite US schools are over-represented (23% IvyPlus), but nobody comes close to Harvard.

🧵