This paper develops a theoretical model aimed at accounting for cross-national and temporal variation in intergenerational mobility and persistence and at identifying levers for social policy. The model allows to interpret variation in the intergenerational elasticity of expected income (IGE) in terms of differences in structural parameters. It shows that the IGE can be expressed as a function of parameters representing the productivity of private and public investments in human capital, the return to human capital, the progressivity of public investment in human capital, the degree of socioeconomic residential segregation, and the degree to which taxes and transfers reduce income inequality as measured by the Gini coefficient