Wolfe, John R. 1982. "The Impact of Family Resources on Childhood IQ." Journal of Human Resources 17(2):213-235.

The effects of family income, parents' education, maternal employment, and family composition on the IQ scores of 4- and 7-year-olds are estimated, using a sample of more than 3000 children. The results suggest that childhood cognitive development plays a minor role in the intergenerational transmission of wealth, and that programs to supplement family incomes would not have much effect on children's IQ scores. Compensatory education is shown to have had significant but short-lived benefits for sample children. Implications for household production and confluence models of intellectual development are also examined.

The author is Assistant Professor of Economics, Michigan State University.
* I am grateful to Paul Taubman, David Crawford, Anne Williams, Michael Grossman, Rebecca Maynard, and several anonymous referees for advice and comments on earlier drafts and to Steven Aurand for technical information on psychological tests. Data were provided by the Institute for the Continuous Study of Man, Philadelphia; these data are also available from the National Institutes of Health.

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US ISSN 0022-166X

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