Social Mobility

  • Gary Solon
  • Raj Chetty
  • Florencia Torche

Leaders: Raj Chetty, Gary Solon, Florencia Torche

The purpose of the Social Mobility RG is to develop and exploit new administrative sources for measuring mobility and the effects of policy on mobility out of poverty. This research group is doing so by (a) providing comprehensive analyses of intergenerational mobility based on linked administrative data from U.S. tax returns, W-2s, and other sources, and (b) developing a new infrastructure for monitoring social mobility, dubbed the American Opportunity Study, that is based on linking census and other administrative data. Here’s a sampling of projects:

Small place estimates: The Equal Opportunity Project, led by Raj Chetty, uses tax return data to monitor opportunities for mobility out of poverty. In one of the new lines of analysis coming out of this project, the first round of results at the level of “commuting zones” are being redone at a more detailed level (e.g., census block level), thus allowing for even better inferences about the effects of place.

The American Opportunity Study: This research group is also collaborating with the Census Bureau to develop a new infrastructure for monitoring mobility that treats linked decennial census data as the spine on which other administrative data are hung.

Colleges and rising income inequality: Where do poor children go to attend college? The “Mobility Report Card” will convey the joint distribution of parent and student incomes for every Title IV institution in the United States.

The “absolute mobility” of the poor: What fraction of poor children grow up to earn more than their parents? Have rates of absolute upward mobility changed over time? This project develops a new method of estimating rates of absolute mobility for the 1940-1984 birth cohorts.

Intergenerational elasticities in the U.S.: There remains some debate about the size of intergenerational elasticities in the U.S. A rarely-used sample of 1987 tax data provides new evidence on U.S. elasticities.

Mobility - CPI Research

Title Author Media
The Strength of Weak Ties Granovetter, Mark S.

The Strength of Weak Ties

Author: Granovetter, Mark S.
Publisher: American Journal of Sociology
Date: 05/1973
Political Power and Social Classes Nicos Poulantzas

Political Power and Social Classes

Author: Nicos Poulantzas
Publisher: Verso
Date:
Approaches to Class Analysis

Approaches to Class Analysis

Author:
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Date:
Luxury Fever: Why Money Fails to Satisfy in an Era of Excess Robert H Frank

Luxury Fever: Why Money Fails to Satisfy in an Era of Excess

Author: Robert H Frank
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Date:
Economic Growth and Income Inequality Kuznets, Simon

Economic Growth and Income Inequality

Author: Kuznets, Simon
Publisher: American Economic Review
Date:

mobility - CPI Affiliates

Scott Eliason's picture Scott Eliason Associate Professor
University of Minnesota
Nathaniel Hendren's picture Nathaniel Hendren Assistant Professor of Economics
Harvard University
Stefan Svallfors's picture Stefan Svallfors Professor of Sociology; Chairman of Social Welfare Research; Professor in Sociology, Södertörn University; Research Director, Institute for Futures Studies
Umea University
Tak Wing Chan's picture Tak Wing Chan Professor of Quantitative Social Science
UCL Institute of Education
Vered Kraus's picture Vered Kraus Professor, Department of Sociology and Anthropology
University of Haifa

Pages

Mobility - Other Research

Title Author Media
The Capitalist World-Economy Wallerstein, Immanuel

The Capitalist World-Economy

Author: Wallerstein, Immanuel
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Date:
Wealth in America Lisa A. Keister

Wealth in America

Author: Lisa A. Keister
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Date:
Are You Sure You’re Saving Enough for Retirement? Jonathan Skinner

Are You Sure You’re Saving Enough for Retirement?

Author: Jonathan Skinner
Publisher: Journal of Economic Perspectives
Date:
The Contingent Value of Social Capital Ronald S. Burt

The Contingent Value of Social Capital

Author: Ronald S. Burt
Publisher: Cornell University, Graduate School of Business and Public Administration
Date:

Burt presents argument and evidence for a structural ecology of social capital that describes how the value of social capital to an individual is contingent on the number of people doing the same work. The information and control benefits of bridging the structural holes - or, disconnections between non-redundant contacts in a network - that constitute social capital are especially valuable to managers with few peers. Such managers do not have the guiding frame of reference for behavior provided by numerous competitors, and the work they do does not have the legitimacy provided by numerous people doing the same kind of work. Burt uses network and performance data on a probability sample of senior managers to show how the value of social capital, high on average for the managers, varies as a power function of the number of people doing the same work.

Neighbors as Negatives: Relative Earnings and Well-Being Erzo F. P. Luttmer

Neighbors as Negatives: Relative Earnings and Well-Being

Author: Erzo F. P. Luttmer
Publisher:
Date:

Mobility - Multimedia

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