This paper examines the degree of intergenerational economic mobility in Italy. It adds to the growing number of international studies of the extent to which economic status is passed on across generations. On the basis of recent econometric innovations used in the literature, I am able to overcome some of the data limitations for Italy. I use the Historical Database of the Bank of Italy households survey, which contains information from 1977 to 2002. Retrospective information in the repeated cross-sections may be exploited by applying a two-sample two stage least squares estimation. I estimate the intergenerational income elasticity for Italy and find that mobility is limited. From an overall comparison, the evidence provided in this paper hints at Italy in the low-mobility group among advanced societies in the range of values characterising the US and the UK. The analysis of the results allows a characterization of interesting descriptive features in the transmission of economic status in Italy.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Find related papers by JEL classification: J62 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, and Vacancies - - - Job, Occupational and Intergenerational Mobility; Promotion D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports: