This paper has two purposes. The first is to define clearly different social mobility concepts and components. The second is to embed these concepts and components into a larger context of social mobility research. The core of the paper develops six mobility concepts and their measures as well...

This paper investigates empirically the link between the prospects of upward mobility and preferences for redistribution using data for a large number of countries from the Life in Transition Survey. The survey is unique in that it provides a detailed account of expected future mobility, and...

The definition of social mobility is a matter of debate. In the following discussion, conceptual issues in the literature on mobility are commented. This paper defines social mobility as a situation in which the relative economic status of an agent is not dependent on starting conditions such as...

We develop and estimate an equilibrium model of geographic variation in the intergenerational elasticity of earnings (IGE). The theory extends the Becker-Tomes model, introducing a production sector in which workers' human capital inputs are complements. In this setting the return to parental...

As the Covid-19 pandemic takes its disproportionate toll on African Americans, the historical perspective in this working paper provides insight into the socioeconomic conditions under which President-elect Joe Biden’s campaign promise to “build back better” might actually begin to deliver...

This chapter summarizes what has been learned from recent research on intergenerational transmission of earnings status. The chapter begins by using a simple theoretical model to highlight several key concepts. Then it reviews (and discusses the connections among) three related empirical...

This paper provides evidence on the degree and patterns of intergenerational income and educational mobility in urban Chile. We find intergenerational income elasticities for Greater Santiago in Chile in the range of 0.52 to 0.54. This is lower than recent nation-wide elasticities for Chile of...

This paper combines historical cross-sectional and longitudinal data in the US to study patterns of economic growth within the income distribution. We quantify absolute mobility as the fraction of families with higher income over a period of several years. The rates of absolute mobility over...

This paper estimates the extent of intergenerational income mobility in Japan among sons and daughters born between 1935 and 1975. Our estimates rely on a two-sample instrumental variables approach using representative data from the Japanese Social Stratification and Mobility (SSM) surveys,...

This paper presents a comparative overview of mobility patterns in 14 Latin American countries between 1992 and 2003. Using three alternative econometric techniques on constructed pseudo-panels, the paper provides a set of estimators for the traditional notion of income mobility as well as for...