Degree Of Intergenerational Mobility Research Articles

How does information about inequality shape voting intentions and preferences for redistribution? Evidence from a randomized survey experiment in Indonesia

We test the elasticity of people's voting intentions and preferences for redistribution to information about inequality through a large-scale, randomised survey experiment in Indonesia. Respondents received information about either (1) the level of national inequality, (2) the level of national inequality in combination with the degree of intergenerational mobility, (3) their position in the national income distribution, or no information. The first two treatments raised people's concern about inequality and mobility. The first treatment also increased the likelihood they would vote against the President. The third treatment lowered richer respondents’ support for redistribution. These findings provide new insights about the challenges of increasing public support for government-led redistribution, such as tax increases and greater spending on social protection, in middle-income country settings.

Education, Access to Better Quality Work and Gender: Lessons from the Kagera Panel Data Set

Abstract For many decades the worldwide expansion of supply and demand for skilled work has been at the heart of economic growth and development. In this paper, we use the 1991–2010 panel data from the Kagera Health and Development Survey in North West Tanzania to examine the work outcomes at the end of the panel of those who were young (7 to 24 years) in the baseline. First, we illustrate the significant extent to which advanced education and skilled work go hand in hand. We analyse specifically the baseline household factors enabling individuals to access more advanced education, and we find quite different results by gender. We then analyse, again by gender, how this education plus baseline characteristics matter for attaining skilled or professional work. We also study the importance of migration in the process and the degree of intergenerational mobility in skilled work. The results show vividly how some key household factors help young men advance in their education and career, while childcare in particular retards the progress young women can make.

Local Intergenerational Mobility

Using NLSY data we investigate whether the observed patterns of economic mobility (as measured by income and educational attainment) exhibit heterogeneity across socioeconomic groups and whether the nature of the heterogeneity can be explained by different levels of persistence in the intergenerational transmission of cognitive and non-cognitive abilities across these groups. In doing so we employ the varying coefficient model (VCM) to estimate nonparametric (local) measures of intergenerational mobility of those outcome variables. By local we mean that the persistence coefficients are modeled as smooth functions of log parental permanent income. Our findings show that intergenerational mobility exhibits nonlinear patterns. Individuals with different parental income are characterized by different degrees of intergenerational mobility. Moreover, we find evidence that suggests cognitive abilities play a role in explaining intergenerational mobility. These findings provide some support for a new class of family investment models that emphasize the role of such abilities in economic mobility.

Intergenerational Mobility of Earnings and Income Among Sons and Daughters in Vietnam

This paper empirically examines intergenerational economic mobility in Vietnam. The two-sample two-stage least squares estimation is employed to achieve the research objective using two primary samples of father-son pairs and father-daughter pairs from Vietnam Household Living Standards Survey of 2012, and one secondary sample from Vietnam Living Standards Survey of 1997-1998. The baseline intergenerational elasticity estimates show that Vietnam occupies the intermediate degrees of intergenerational mobility of earnings and income for both sons and daughters. In particular, a rise of 10% in fathers’ individual earnings is on average associated with an increase of 3.61% and 3.94% for sons’ individual earnings and individual income, respectively. The corresponding figures for daughters’ individual earnings and individual income are 2.84% and 3.33%, respectively. This paper also provides evidence on the average degree of inequality of opportunity in Vietnam during its transition from a central planning economy to a market-oriented system.

Local Measures of Intergenerational Mobility of Income, Cognitive, and Noncognitive Skills

Using NLSY data we investigate whether the observed patterns of intergenerational persistence in cognitive and non-cognitive abilities are consistent with the predictions of the genetic hypothesis. In doing so we employ the varying coefficient model to estimate nonparametric (local) measures of intergenerational mobility of income, cognitive, and non-cognitive skills as smooth functions of log parent permanent income. Our findings show that intergenerational mobility exhibits nonlinear patterns. Individuals with different parental income are characterized by different degrees of intergenerational mobility. Moreover, we find evidence that suggests that the genetic component in the overall intergenerational transmission mechanism is much stronger than the epigenetic for both sons and daughters.

Effects of Aspirations and Habits on the Distribution of Wealth

AbstractWe analyze how the introduction of habits and aspirations affects the distribution of wealth when the labor productivity of individuals is subject to idiosyncratic shocks and when bequests arise from a joy‐of‐giving motive. In the presence of either bequests or aspirations, labor income shocks are transmitted intergenerationally, and this transmission, together with contemporaneous shocks, determines the distribution of wealth. We show that the introduction of aspirations (habits) decreases (increases) the average wealth, and increases (decreases) both its intragenerational variability and the degree of intergenerational mobility. Therefore, a distinction between aspirations and habits is relevant because they involve different implications for the distribution of wealth.

Funcionamiento del ascensor social en España y posibles mejoras. Informe SESPAS 2014

In this article, we analyze the extent to which an individual's socioeconomic status is inherited and how equality of opportunity could be increased to improve social mobility. Poverty and deprivation can stop being dynastic-like if the social elevator works. In Spain, income inequality, measured by the Gini coefficient, rose from 0.31 in 2006 to 0.35 in 2012 (moving away from Scandinavia and Central Europe and more closely resembling income inequality in the UK or the United States), while the degree of intergenerational mobility is half-way between that in Italy and the United States. To change this situation and make the social elevator work, primary education should be improved and the health system should be steered toward primary healthcare. This will not be feasible without an improvement in politics and the institutional framework that determine these factors.

Human capital and the rise and fall of families.

"This paper develops a model of the transmission of earnings, assets, and consumption from parents to descendants. The model assumes utility-maximizing parents who are concerned about the welfare of their children. The degree of intergenerational mobility is determined by the interaction of this utility-maximizing behavior with investment and consumption opportunities in different generations and with different kinds of luck. We examine a number of empirical studies for different countries. Regression to the mean in earnings in rich countries appears to be rapid. Almost all the earnings advantages or disadvantages of ancestors are wiped out in three generations." A comment by Robert J. Willis is included (pp. 40-7).

Inter-generational Transmission of Inequality: An Empirical Study of Wealth Mobility

Although much research has been done on the intra-generational distribution of income and wealth, much less work has been done on inter-generational effects; research in both areas is needed for a complete understanding of the subject. In addition to the study of factors that determine the size distribution of income and wealth, economists should also be interested in the degree of inter-generational mobility that is exhibited in an economy: the extent to which there is equal opportunity for children whose parents' economic position is dissimilar. This issue of mobility is clearly distinct from the issue of equality. For any degree of inequality we can have a relatively static society in which children always assume their parents' position, or a highly mobile society in which the position of the child is unrelated to that of his parents. The degree of inter-generational mobility is determined by market, institutional and genetic factors, among others. The systems that provide education and care for children, distribute public expenditures and transmit material inheritance all influence mobility across generations. This paper presents empirical estimates of the relationship between the material wealth held by parents and that held by their children in the United States. The line of research pursued here was in part inspired by the work of Harbury (1962). The data comes from probate records and therefore records wealth-holding at a specific point in the life-cycle i.e. at death. The sample is described in Section I. Some simple empirical relationships are presented in Section II. In Section III regression analysis is used to indicate the degree of wealth mobility across one generation. The regression equations can be considered reduced form equations generated by a more complex structural equation system. An example of such a system is presented in Section IV.