Lecture Introduction

This paper examines an under-explored determinant of intergenerational mobility: racial assortative mating. Our unique identification strategy leverages two historical events-changes in marriageable Black population during the Second-Great-Migration and the landmark1967 Supreme Court ruling in Loving v. Virginia. The interplay of these events present exogenous shocks to marriage market conditions that are conducive to interracial marriages, thereby reducing racial assortative mating. We find a pronounced, negative relationship between racial assortative mating and mobility. We further show that the negative mobility impacts associated with assortative mating might be channeled through factors such as social network formations, neighborhood characteristics, and family structure. Finally, we also uncover a significant heterogeneity in the effects across the income distribution. The negative effects are more markedly pronounced for children from low-income families than for children from more affluent families. Such pattern is consistent with the differential influence of alternative mechanisms across the income distribution. 

Speaker
Professor Le Wang (Virginia Tech, USA)

Lecture Time
May 19, 2025 (Monday), 10:00–11:30

Venue
Room 347, Qiu Shi Building

Lecture Language
Chinese & English

Moderator
Associate Professor Xuan Chen

Speaker Biography

Le Wang is a tenured Professor, David M. Kohl Chair Professor, Director of the Kohl Centre, and Doctoral Advisor at Virginia Tech. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Southern Economic Association (USA), directs the Young Scholars Program of the Global Labor Organization (GLO), and is Co-Editor-in-Chief of China Economics Review and Journal of Labor Research, as well as Associate Editor of Econometric Reviews. He is a member of the Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Global Working Group at the University of Chicago, a Research Fellow at the International Labour Organization (ILO), and a Research Fellow at the Institute of Labor Economics (IZA, Germany). 

Previously, he held positions as a Research Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School, Board Member of the Chinese Economists Society (CES), Evaluation Expert for the Italian National Agency for the Evaluation of Universities and Research Institutes (ANVUR), tenured Professor and Chong K. Liew Chair Professor at the University of Oklahoma (where he also served as Director of the Graduate Program in Managerial Economics and Data Analytics and received the university’s highest honor, Presidential Professorship), Distinguished Chair Professor at Jinan University, and tenured Professor at the University of Alabama. 

Professor Wang specializes in microeconometrics and applied microeconomics, with nearly 40 publications in top-tier journals such as the Journal of Political Economy, Journal of Econometrics, Journal of Business and Economic Statistics, Journal of Applied Econometrics, and Journal of Environmental Economics and Management. He has led major research projects funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Department of Education, and Department of Health and Human Services. His work has been recognized with the 2018 Kuznets Prize from the Journal of Population Economics, the 2023 Emerald Outstanding Author Contribution Award, and the University of Oklahoma’s Interdisciplinary Excellence Award in the same year.

Faculty and students are warmly welcome to attend!