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Earnings mobility in the US: a new look at intergenerational inequality

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Author Info
Bhashkar Mazumder
Abstract

This study uses a new data set that contains the Social Security earnings histories of parents and children in the 1984 Survey of Income and Program Participation, to measure the intergenerational elasticity in earnings in the United States. Earlier studies that found an intergenerational elasticity of 0.4 have typically used only up to five-year averages of fathers' earnings to measure fathers' permanent earnings. However, dynamic earnings models that allow for serial correlation in transitory shocks to earnings imply that using such a short time span may lead to estimates that are biased down by nearly 30 percent. Indeed, by using many more years of fathers' earnings than earlier studies, the intergenerational elasticity between fathers and sons is estimated to be around 0.6 implying significantly less mobility in the U.S. than previous research indicated. The elasticity in earnings between fathers and daughters is of a similar magnitude. The evidence also suggests that family income has an even larger effect than fathers' earnings on children's future labor market success. The elasticity of earnings is higher for families with low net worth, offering some empirical support for theoretical models that predict differences due to borrowing constraints. Some evidence of a higher elasticity among blacks is found but the results are not conclusive.

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Paper provided by Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago in its series Working Paper Series with number WP-01-18.

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Date of creation: 2001
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Handle: RePEc:fip:fedhwp:wp-01-18

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Keywords: Income ; Social security;

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This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports: References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Couch, Kenneth A. & Lillard, Dean R., 1998. "Sample selection rules and the intergenerational correlation of earnings," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 5(3), pages 313-329, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Behrman, Jere & Tarbman, Paul, 1985. "Intergenerational Earnings Mobility in the United States: Some Estimates and a Test of Becker's Intergenerational Endowments Model," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 67(1), pages 144-51, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. MaCurdy, Thomas E., 1982. "The use of time series processes to model the error structure of earnings in a longitudinal data analysis," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 83-114, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Becker, Gary S & Tomes, Nigel, 1986. "Human Capital and the Rise and Fall of Families," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 4(3), pages S1-39, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  5. Corak, Miles & Heisz, Andrew, 1998. "The Intergenerational Earnings and Income Mobility of Canadian Men: Evidence from Longitudinal Income Tax Data," Analytical Studies Branch Research Paper Series 1998113e, Statistics Canada, Analytical Studies Branch. [Downloadable!]
  6. David Card, 1990. "Intertemporal Labor Supply: An Assessment," Working Papers 649, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section.. [Downloadable!]
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  7. Joseph G. Altonji & Thomas A. Dunn, 1991. "Relationships Among the Family Incomes and Labor Market Outcomes of Relatives," NBER Working Papers 3724, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. Peters, H Elizabeth, 1992. "Patterns of Intergenerational Mobility in Income and Earnings," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 74(3), pages 456-66, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Becker, Gary S & Tomes, Nigel, 1979. "An Equilibrium Theory of the Distribution of Income and Intergenerational Mobility," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(6), pages 1153-89, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  10. Dearden, Lorraine & Machin, Stephen & Reed, Howard, 1997. "Intergenerational Mobility in Britain," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 107(440), pages 47-66, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Bhashkar Mazumder, 2003. "Revised estimates of intergenerational income mobility in the United States," Working Paper Series WP-03-16, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. [Downloadable!]
  2. David I. Levine & Bhashkar Mazumder, 2003. "The growing importance of family and community: an analysis of changes in the sibling correlation in earnings," Working Paper Series WP-03-24, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. [Downloadable!]
  3. Arnaud Lefranc & Alain Trannoy, 2004. "Intergenerational earnings mobility in France : Is France more mobile than the US ?," IDEP Working Papers 0401, Institut d'economie publique (IDEP), Marseille, France, revised Feb 2004. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  4. Arnaud LEFRANC & Fumiaki OJIMA & Takashi YOSHIDA, 2008. "The Intergenerational Transmission of Income and Education: A Comparison of Japan and France," RSCAS Working Papers 2008/25, European University Institute. [Downloadable!]
  5. repec:ese:iserwp: is not listed on IDEAS
  6. Miles Corak, 2006. "Do Poor Children Become Poor Adults? Lessons from a Cross Country Comparison of Generational Earnings Mobility," IZA Discussion Papers 1993, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
  7. Ermisch, John & Francesconi, Marco, 2002. "Intergenerational Social Mobility and Assortative Mating in Britain," IZA Discussion Papers 465, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
  8. David I. Levine & Bhashkar Mazumder, 2002. "Choosing the right parents: changes in the intergenerational transmission of inequality between 1980 and the early 1990s," Working Paper Series WP-02-08, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. [Downloadable!]
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