Why So Many Children of Doctors Become Doctors: Nepotism vs. Human Capital Transfers

Abstract

In this paper we document a statistically significant, marginally greater probability of admittance into (at least one) medical school for children of doctors as compared to children of non-doctors. This fact can plausibly be explained as resulting from nepotism, in various forms, as well as from human capital transfers from first to (would-be) second generation doctors. After controlling for acquired human capital and other attributes of medical school applicants, we cannot reject nepotism as a cause-children of doctors are nearly 14 percent more likely to be admitted into medical school than are comparable nonfollowers.