Intergenerational Income Mobility in Denmark and the United States*

Abstract

AbstractIn this paper, I conduct a novel comparison of intergenerational income mobility in Denmark and the United States, based on high‐quality administrative data for both countries. The results confirm that the United States is substantially less mobile than Denmark, but they also show that the differences in mobility are smaller than previously reported. Mobility differences are larger for family income than individual income. When the individual incomes of children are considered, mobility differences are smaller for daughters than for sons. I also show that the estimated intergenerational elasticity of income for Denmark is quite robust to whether taxes or public transfers are included in the income measure.