PhD Candidate, Department of Economics, LSE
Contact information
Email: f.rossi2@lse.ac.uk
Phone number: +44 (0)74 2893 5412
Room number: 32L.1.07
Address: Department of Economics || London School of Economics and Political Science || Houghton Street || London WC2A 2AE
Research Interests
Primary Fields: Macroeconomics || Growth and Development
Secondary Fields: Labour Economics
Job Market Paper
Parents, Schools and Human Capital Differences across Countries (with Marta De Philippis)
Abstract
Results from international standardised tests show large cross-country differences in students’ performance. Where do these gaps in human capital achievement come from? This paper argues that differences in cultural environments and parental influence may be of great importance. We compare the school performance of second-generation immigrants from different nationalities but educated in the same school, and find that those whose parents come from high-scoring countries in the PISA test do better than their peers. The gap is larger among students whose parents have little education and
have recently immigrated, suggesting that the importance of country-specific cultural traits declines as parents integrate in their host countries. We quantify the overall contribution of parental influence to the observed cross-country differences in the PISA test performance, and show that it accounts for a sizeable part of the gap between East Asia and other regions. This pattern questions the interpretation of PISA scores and other measures of human capital achievement as quality proxies for a country’s educational
system. They appear to reflect an important intergenerational and cultural component.
Publications and Additional Papers
"Barriers to College Investment and Aggregate Productivity"