Cobb-Clark, Deborah A., and Vincent A. Hildebrand. 2006. “The Wealth of Mexican Americans.” Journal of Human Resources 41(4): 841–873.
This paper analyzes the sources of disparities in the relative wealth position of Mexican Americans. Results reveal that—unlike the racial wealth gap— Mexican Americans’ wealth disadvantage is in large part not the result of differences in wealth distributions conditional on the underlying determinants of wealth. Rather, Mexican Americans’ wealth disadvantage is attributable to the fact that these families have more young children and heads who are younger. Mexican Americans’ low educational attainment also has a direct effect in producing a wealth gap relative to other ethnic groups even after differences in income are taken into account. Income differentials are important, but do not play the primary role in explaining the gap in median net worth. Finally, geographic concentration is generally unimportant, but does contribute to narrowing the wealth gap between wealthy Mexican Americans and their white and black counterparts.
Deborah Cobb-Clark is a professor of economics in the Research School of Social Sciences at the Australian National University and a research fellow at the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). Vincent Hildebrand is an assistant professor of economics at Glendon College ( York University) and a research fellow at CEPS/INSTEAD. The authors would like to thank David Jaeger and two anonymous referees for many useful comments. Vincent Hildebrand acknowledges support from the Social and Economic Dimensions of an Aging Population (SEDAP) Research Program. The data used in this article can be obtained beginning February 2007 through January 2010 from Vincent Hildebrand, Department of Economics, Glendon College, 2275 Bayview Ave., Toronto, Ontario, M4N3M6, Canada. E-mail: vincent@econ.yorku.ca.