Francisco H. G. Ferreira’s scientific contributions

We extend the Becker-Tomes model of intergenerational educational mobility to a rural economy characterized by occupational dualism (farm vs. nonfarm) and provide a comparative analysis of rural China and rural India. The model provides a micro-foundation for the widely used linear-in-levels estimating equation. Returns to education for parents and the productivity of financial investment determine relative mobility as measured by the slope, while the intercept depends, among other factors, on the degree of persistence in nonfarm occupations. Unlike many existing studies, our estimates do not suffer from truncation bias due to coresidency restrictions common in household surveys. The sons in rural India faced lower educational mobility compared to the sons in rural China in the 1970s-1990s. To understand the role of genetic inheritance, we combine Altonji et al. (2005) sensitivity analysis with recent evidence on intergenerational persistence in cognitive ability in economics and behavioral genetics literature. The observed persistence can be due solely to genetic correlations in China, but not in India. Father's nonfarm occupation and education were complementary in determining a son's schooling in India, but separable in China. The sep-arability observed for the older cohorts in rural China broke down for the younger cohorts. Structural change in favor of the nonfarm sector contributed to educational inequality in rural India. Evidence from supplementary data on economic mechanisms suggests that the extended Becker-Tomes model provides plausible explanations for the contrasting roles of occupational dualism in intergenerational educational mobility in rural India and rural China.

We extend the Becker-Tomes (1986) model of intergenerational educational mobility to a rural economy characterized by occupational dualism (farm vs. nonfarm) and provide a comparative analysis of rural India and rural China. Using two exceptional data-sets, we estimate father-sons intergenerational educational persistence in farm and nonfarm households free of truncation bias due to coresidency. The sons in rural India faced lower educational mobility compared to the sons in rural China in the 1990s and earlier. Father's nonfarm occupation and education were complementary in determining a son's schooling in India, but separable in China. However, the separability observed for the older cohorts in rural China broke down for the younger cohort. Evidence from supplementary data on economic mechanisms shows that the extended Becker-Tomes model provides plausible explanations for both the crosscountry heterogeneity (India vs. China), and the evolution of mobility across cohorts in China.