Social Mobility

Estimators of the Intergenerational Elasticity of Expected Income

The intergenerational income elasticity (IGE) conventionally estimated in the mobility literature has been widely misinterpreted as pertaining to the conditional expectation of children’s income, when in fact it pertains to its conditional geometric mean. In line with recent work, this article focuses on the estimation of the IGE of expected income.

Two-Sample Estimation of the Intergenerational Elasticity of Expected Income

The intergenerational income elasticity (IGE)—the workhorse measure of economic mobility—has very often been estimated with short-run income measures drawn from two independent samples and using the Two-Sample Two-Stage Least Squares estimator. The IGE conventionally estimated in the literature, however, has been widely misinterpreted: While it is assumed that it pertains to the conditional expectation of children’s income, it actually pertains to its conditional geometric mean.

Intergenerational Income Elasticities, Instrumental Variable Estimation, and Bracketing Strategies

The fact that the intergenerational income elasticity (IGE)—the workhorse measure of economic mobility—is defined in terms of the geometric mean of children’s income generates serious methodological problems. This has led to a call to replace it by the IGE of the expectation, which requires developing the methodological knowledge necessary to estimate the latter with short-run measures of income. This article contributes to this aim.

"Person-Weighted" versus "Dollar-Weighted": A Flawed Characterization of Two Intergenerational Income Elasticities

The intergenerational income elasticity (IGE) has been widely misinterpreted as pertaining to the conditional expectation of children’s income when it pertains to its conditional geometric mean, and is affected by serious methodological problems. This has led to a call to replace the conventionally estimated IGE by the IGE of the expectation.

Estimating the Intergenerational Elasticity of Expected Income with Short-Run Income Measures: A Generalized Error-in-Variables Model

The intergenerational income elasticity (IGE), ubiquitously estimated in the economic mobility literature, has been misinterpreted as pertaining to the expectation of children’s income when it actually pertains to its geometric mean. The (implicit) reliance on the geometric mean to index conditional income distributions greatly hinders the study of gender and marriage dynamics in intergenerational processes, and leads to IGE estimates affected by substantial selection biases.

The Intergenerational Elasticity of What? The Case for Redefining the Workhorse Measure of Economic Mobility

The intergenerational elasticity (IGE) has been assumed to refer to the expectation of children’s income when in fact it pertains to the geometric mean of children’s income. We show that mobility analyses based on the conventional IGE have been widely misinterpreted, are subject to selection bias, and cannot disentangle the “channels” underlying intergenerational persistence. The solution to these problems—estimating the IGE of expected income or earnings—returns the field to what it has long meant to estimate.

New Estimates of Intergenerational Economic Mobility Using Administrative Data

This report presents analyses of a new data set, the Statistics of Income Mobility Panel, that has been assembled to provide new evidence on economic mobility and the implications of tax policy for economic mobility. Because the data are of unusually high quality, they provide the foundation for a comprehensive report on intergenerational income and earnings mobility in the United States.

Coming of Age in the Other America

Recent research on inequality and poverty has shown that those born into low-income families, especially African Americans, still have difficulty entering the middle class, in part because of the disadvantages they experience living in more dangerous neighborhoods, going to inferior public schools, and persistent racial inequality. Coming of Age in the Other America shows that despite overwhelming odds, some disadvantaged urban youth do achieve upward mobility.

State of the Union 2016: Economic Mobility

How does the U.S. stack up against peer countries in terms of economic mobility? University of Ottawa professor Miles Corak addresses this question at our 2016 State of the Union conference. Read the full report.

Following in Father's Footsteps: Social Mobility in Ireland

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