We seek to quantify the role of education as a mechanism through which family background affects earnings. To this end, we propose a generalisation of statistical 'mediation analysis'. In our approach, the treatment and mediator can be multidimensional. This allows us to directly and flexibly...

Countries with high income inequality also show a strong association between parents' and children's economic well-being; i.e. low intergenerational mobility. This study is the first to test this relationship in a between and within country setup, using harmonized micro data from 18 Latin...

To understand the degree of intergenerational mobility in the United States, and the differences between Americans and others, it is important to appreciate the workings and interaction of three fundamental institutions: the family, the market, and the state. But comparisons can also be...

This paper provides a critical survey and synthesis of the recent economic literature on intergenerational mobility in developing countries, with a focus on data and methodological challenges. The attenuation due to measurement error is compounded by sample truncation resulting from co-residency...

We link administrative data on tax returns across two generations of Italians to study the degree of intergenerational mobility. We estimate that a child with parental income below the median is expected to belong to the 44th percentile of its own income distribution as an adult, and the...

We study the importance of the extended family - the dynasty - for the persistence in inequality across generations. We use data including the entire Swedish population, linking four generations. This data structure enables us to identify parents' siblings and cousins, their spouses, and the...

We study the importance of the extended family - the dynasty - for the persistence in inequality across generations. We use data including the entire Swedish population, linking four generations. This data structure enables us to identify parents' siblings and cousins, their spouses, and the...

This paper estimates the relationship between differences in skills measured among within-country ethnic groups and individual human capital accumulation in eight African countries. Our results show that the skills of an individual in these countries depends more on the human capital levels of...

We estimate the intergenerational elasticity (IGE) of income for the Netherlands using complete population data for around 177,000 28-year olds. We find that IGEs are much lower when actual individual income data are used rather than proxies or aggregates for income. Though low, daughters' IGEs...

This paper explores the variation in intergenerational educational mobility across the Brazilian states based on Markov transition matrixes and univariate econometric techniques. The analysis of the national household survey (PNAD-2014) confirms a strong variation in mobility among the 27...