The Evolution of Education in Denmark

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The family plays a very important role. It's kind of like a captain in the wheelhouse telling the child what to do, where to go and what opportunities to take. And it's those subtle influences that nobody wants to talk about. Denmark is a case study where almost every obvious solution will externally involve solution. Is it work here? Everybody's got the same tuition. But yet everybody doesn't go to college. They're not getting reading and writing and support.

Economist and Nobel Laureate James Heckman of the University of Chicago talks about inequality and economic mobility with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Drawing on research on inequality in Denmark with Rasmus Landerso, Heckman argues that despite the efforts of the Danish welfare state to provide equal access to education, there is little difference in economic mobility between the United States and Denmark. The conversation includes a general discussion of economic mobility in the United States along with a critique of Chetty and others' work on the power of neighborhood to determine one's economic destiny.