The United States and China are the world's largest economies. Together they are responsible for about one-third of the world's economic output. This paper aims to examine whether the two economic giants are also lands of opportunity where resources are allocated in a way that minimizes...

Numerous public policies are aimed at improving the earnings opportunities for children of the poor and at reducing lifetime earnings inequality. This paper investigates to what extent such policies accomplish their objectives. A quantitative theory of intergenerational mobility and lifetime...

In the face of rising income inequality (Acemoglu & Autor, 2011; Atkinson, Piketty, & Saez, 2011; Piketty, 2014; World Economic Forum, 2014), one recent proposal is to provide consumers with information about the income inequality across those involved in the production of each good, at the point of...

The paper studies the determinants of income distribution and growth in an overlapping generations economy with heterogenous households. Our framework has the following main features: (1) heterogeneity of consumers with respect to wealth and parental human capital; (2) intergenerational...

The paper studies the determinants of income distribution and growth in an overlapping generations economy withheterogenous households. Our framework has the following main features:heterogeneity of consumers with respect to wealth and parental human capital;intergenerational transfers,...

This paper analyzes the relationship between spatial mobility and social mobility. It develops a two-skill-type spatial equilibrium model of two regions with location preferences where each region consists of an urban area which is home to workplaces and residences and an exclusively residential...

This chapter provides new evidence on educational inequality and reviews the literature on the causes and consequences of unequal education. We document large achievement gaps between children from different socio-economic backgrounds, show how patterns of educational inequality vary across...

The paper paper estimates long run social mobility in Australia 1870-2017 tracking the status of rare surnames. The status information includes occupations from electoral rolls, and records of degrees awarded by Melbourne and Sydney universities. Status persistence was strong throughout, with an...

While cross-sectional increases in inequality are a cause for concern, the study of the intergenerational transmission of socioeconomic status is perhaps more relevant. How is social status reproduced from one generation to the next? Recent work has highlighted the relationship, if not causal...

The relationship between social mobility and inequality is well studied in the literature, but far greater attention has been paid to 'vertical' than to 'horizontal' inequality. This paper focuses on mobility and horizontal inequality between ethnic, racial, and culturally-defined groups. Not...