Assessing the Effect of Wealth on Education without Wealth Data

Florencia Torche, New York University
Seymour Spilerman, Columbia University

We analyze the association between parental wealth and diverse measures of children's educational attainment in two Latin American countries. Given that wealth data are usually not available in developing countries, we use Filmer and Pritchett's (1999, 2001) approach in which wealth is proxied by a set of household assets. Different specifications of this measure are tested, and its potential multidimensionality is explored. Methodological and conceptual issues of this approach are discussed.