My father and my mother met at a venerable English university. I went to the same place, as did two of my sisters. Now that my stepbrother has followed in our footsteps, I am starting to think that there may be more than coincidence behind the whole business.

If we accept that fluke is an unlikely explanation for the uniformity of the Harford educational experience, it is an example of what economists call “intergenerational transmission of educational attainment”. Intergenerational transmission of income is a closely related issue: do the children of rich parents grow up to be rich, and do the children of poor parents grow up to be poor?