We study the intergenerational transmission of welfare benefit receipt in Germany. We first describe the correlation between welfare receipt experienced in the parental household and subsequent own welfare receipt of young adults. In a second step, we investigate whether the observed...

Are children better off than their parents? This highly debated question in politics and economics is investigated by analysing the trends in absolute and relative intergenerational labour income mobility for Germany and the US. High quality panel data is used for this purpose; the SOEP for...

Are children better off than their parents? This highly debated question in politics and economics is investigated by analysing the trends in absolute and relative intergenerational labour income mobility for Germany and the US. High quality panel data is used for this purpose; the SOEP for...

Based on nationally representative data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), and the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) we analyze the intergenerational transmission of economic and social (dis-)advantages in Germany, the United States and...

Motivated by contradictory evidence on intergenerational mobility in Germany, I present a cross-country comparison of Germany and the US, reassessing the question of whether intergenerational mobility is higher in Germany than the US. I can reproduce the standard result from the literature,...

Proponents of tracking argue that the creation of more homogeneous classes increases effciency while opponents point out that tracking aggravates initial differences between students. We estimate the effects on the intergenerational transmission of education of a reform that delayed tracking by...

This paper analyzes whether individuals have equal opportunity to achieve happiness (or wellbeing). We estimate sibling correlations and intergenerational correlations in self-reported life satisfaction, satisfaction with household income, job satisfaction, and satisfaction with health. We find...

In this paper we present sibling and neighbor correlations in school grades and cognitive skills as well as indicators of physical and mental health for a sample of German adolescents. In a first step, we estimate sibling correlations and find substantial influence of shared family and community...

We survey the literature on income mobility, aiming to provide an integrated discussion of mobility within- and between-generations. We review mobility concepts, descriptive devices, measurement methods, data sources, and recent empirical evidence.