Aggregate and Intergenerational Implications of School Closures: A Quantitative Assessment
Open accessAbstract
This paper quantitatively investigates the medium- and long-term macroeconomic and distributional consequences of school closures through intergenerational channels. The model economy is a dynastic overlapping-generations general equilibrium model in which schools, in the form of public education investments, complement parental investments in producing children’s human capital. We find that unexpected school closure shocks have long-lasting adverse effects on macroeconomic aggregates and reduce intergenerational mobility, especially among older children. Higher substitutability between public and private investments induces smaller damages in the aggregate economy and the affected children’s lifetime income while exacerbating negative impacts on intergenerational mobility and inequality. (JEL D31, E24, I26, I28, J22, J62)
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In Jang and Yum (2020), a one-year school closure would lower the probability of children born into the bottom income quintile moving up to the top quintile by two to three percent and increase the rank correlation in income by 0.4 to 0.9 percent.
“On average, a one-year school closure would lower the probability of children born into the bottom income quintile to move up to the top quintile by two to three percent and increase the rank correlation in income by 0.4 to 0.9 percent.”
From Educational Inequality* (2022) · cites this paper as Jang and Yum (2020)
In Jang and Yum (2020), there is a sizeable effect on intergenerational mobility.
“Nevertheless, there is a sizeable effect on intergenerational mobility.”
From Educational Inequality* (2022) · cites this paper as Jang and Yum (2020)
In Jang and Yum (2020), school closures have only a small impact on cross-sectional inequality.
“In the setting of Jang and Yum (2020), school closures have only a small impact on cross-sectional inequality.”
From Educational Inequality* (2022) · cites this paper as Jang and Yum (2020)
In Jang and Yum (2020), the effects on intergenerational mobility are larger for older children, who have less time to compensate for learning losses through greater time investments.
“In contrast to the findings of Fuchs-Schündeln et al. (2021), these effects turn out to be larger for older children, who have less time to compensate for learning losses through greater time investments.”
From Educational Inequality* (2022) · cites this paper as Jang and Yum (2020)
General equilibrium effects have a substantial impact on the aggregate impact: the decline in the supply of human capital raises the return to education, providing additional incentives for parents to make up for some learning losses through higher investments.
“General equilibrium effects have a substantial impact on the aggregate impact: the decline in the supply of human capital by the affected cohorts raises the return to education, which provides additional incentives for parents to make up for at least some of the learning losses through higher investments.”
From Educational Inequality* (2022) · cites this paper as Jang and Yum (2020)
In Jang and Yum (2020), school closures lasting one year reduce the lifetime income of affected cohorts by about one percent, compared to a one percent reduction for a half-year closure estimated by Fuchs-Schündeln et al. (2021).
“The authors find that school closures that last for one year reduce the lifetime income of the affected cohorts by about one percent, compared to a one percent reduction for a half-year closure as estimated by Fuchs-Schündeln et al. (2021).”
From Educational Inequality* (2022) · cites this paper as Jang and Yum (2020)
Cites
Learning loss due to school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic
Engzell, P., Frey, A., & Verhagen, M. D. (2021) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.2022376118 · Cited by 1,848 · cited 5× · see citing works
“We show that although younger school-aged children are more negatively affected on impact than older ones, the equalizing effect of public education (Fernandez and Rogerson 1998) enables those young children (especially more disadvantaged children) to recover over time in the following periods without school closures.…”
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Blanden, J., Doepke, M., & Stuhler, J. (2022) · National Bureau of Economic Research · doi:10.3386/w29979 · Cited by 47 · see citing works
“Several recent papers assess the implications of pandemic school closures for educational attainment and inequality (Agostinelli et al., 2022; Fuchs-Sch€undeln et al., 2022; Jang and Yum, 2020).”
Background
- Authors
- Jang, Y., & Yum, M.
- Affiliations
- Centre for Economic Policy Research (GB)
- ORCID
- Yum, Minchul
- Venue
- SSRN Electronic Journal
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2020
- Volume
- 16
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 90-130
- ISSN
- 1945-7707 (ISSN-L)
- 1556-5068
- OpenAlex
- W3168728451
- Cited by
- 22
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2025: 2 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 8 · 2021: 4
- FWCI
- 5.67
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- doi.org
- Locations
- American Economic Journal Macroeconomics (publishedVersion)
- SSRN Electronic Journal (publishedVersion)
- Munich Personal RePEc Archive (Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich) (acceptedVersion)
- ePrints Soton (University of Southampton) (acceptedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (CRC-TR 224, TR 224)
- Shanghai Municipal Education Commission
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Intergenerational and Educational Inequality Studies
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Economic Growth and Productivity
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › COVID-19 Pandemic Impacts
- Keywords
- school closures, public education investment, human capital, intergenerational mobility, income inequality, lifetime income, macroeconomic effects, distributional effects
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