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
Top Heavy: A Study of the Increasing Inequality of Wealth in America Edward N. Wolff

Top Heavy: A Study of the Increasing Inequality of Wealth in America

Author: Edward N. Wolff
Publisher: The Century Foundation, Inc.
Date:
How do Friendships Form? David Marmaros and Bruce I. Sacerdote

How do Friendships Form?

Author: David Marmaros and Bruce I. Sacerdote
Publisher: Quarterly Journal of Economics
Date:
Changing Highbrow Taste: From Snob to Omnivore Richard A. Peterson and Roger M. Kern

Changing Highbrow Taste: From Snob to Omnivore

Author: Richard A. Peterson and Roger M. Kern
Publisher:
Date:
What's Behind the Rise in Profitability in the US in the 1980s and 1990s? Edward N. Wolff

What's Behind the Rise in Profitability in the US in the 1980s and 1990s?

Author: Edward N. Wolff
Publisher: Cambridge Journal of Economics
Date:
Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life Annette Lareau

Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life

Author: Annette Lareau
Publisher: University of California Press
Date:

mobility - CPI Affiliates

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
Gary Solon's picture Gary Solon Professor Emeritus of Economics
University of Michigan
Walter Korpi's picture Walter Korpi Professor, Swedish Institute for Social Research
Stockholm University

Pages

Mobility - Other Research

Title Author Media
The Rise of Intra-Occupational Wage Inequality in the United States, 1983 to 2002 Chang Kim, Hwan and Arthur Sakamoto

The Rise of Intra-Occupational Wage Inequality in the United States, 1983 to 2002

Author: Chang Kim, Hwan and Arthur Sakamoto
Publisher: American Sociological Review
Date:
Marxism and Class Theory: A Bourgeois Critique Frank Parkin

Marxism and Class Theory: A Bourgeois Critique

Author: Frank Parkin
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Date:

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Class, Status, Party Max Weber

Class, Status, Party

Author: Max Weber
Publisher: Routledge
Date:
Gender, Children, and Social Contact: The Effects of Childrearing for Men and Women Munch, Allison, Miller McPherson, and Lynn Smith-...

Gender, Children, and Social Contact: The Effects of Childrearing for Men and Women

Author: Munch, Allison, Miller McPherson, and Lynn Smith-...
Publisher: American Sociology Review
Date:
The Future of Intellectuals and the Rise of the New Class Alvin W. Gouldner

The Future of Intellectuals and the Rise of the New Class

Author: Alvin W. Gouldner
Publisher: Seabury Press
Date:

Mobility - Multimedia

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