Permanent Income and the Black-White Test Score Gap / Jesse Rothstein, Nathan Wozny.

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Rothstein, Jesse

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Material type: Text

TextSeries: Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) ; no. w17610.Publication details: Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2011.Description: 1 online resource: illustrations (black and white)Subject(s):

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Abstract: Analysts often examine the black-white test score gap conditional on family income. Typically only a current income measure is available. We argue that the gap conditional on permanent income is of greater interest, and we describe a method for identifying this gap using an auxiliary data set to estimate the relationship between current and permanent income. Current income explains only about half as much of the black-white test score gap as does permanent income, and the remaining gap in math achievement among families with the same permanent income is only 0.2 to 0.3 standard deviations in two commonly used data sets. When we add permanent income to the controls used by Fryer and Levitt (2006), the unexplained gap in 3rd grade shrinks below 0.15 standard deviations, less than half of what is found with their controls.

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Item type	Home library	Collection	Call number	Status	Date due	Barcode	Item holds
Working Paper	Biblioteca Digital	Colección NBER	nber w17610 (Browse shelf(Opens below))	Not For Loan

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November 2011.

Analysts often examine the black-white test score gap conditional on family income. Typically only a current income measure is available. We argue that the gap conditional on permanent income is of greater interest, and we describe a method for identifying this gap using an auxiliary data set to estimate the relationship between current and permanent income. Current income explains only about half as much of the black-white test score gap as does permanent income, and the remaining gap in math achievement among families with the same permanent income is only 0.2 to 0.3 standard deviations in two commonly used data sets. When we add permanent income to the controls used by Fryer and Levitt (2006), the unexplained gap in 3rd grade shrinks below 0.15 standard deviations, less than half of what is found with their controls.