Interest in economic mobility stems largely from its perceived role as an equalizer of opportunities, though not necessarily of outcomes. In this paper we show that this view leads very naturally to a methodology for the measurement of social mobility which has strong parallels with the theory...

Using two unifying models and an empirical exercise, this paper presents and extends the main theories linking income distribution and growth, as well the relevant empirical evidence.

This paper examines how ambiguous notions such as "meritocracy" , "equality of opportunity" and "equality of outcomes" can be given a formal content and related to more standard economic concepts such as social mobility, income inequality, and efficiency.