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The Long-Run Evolution of Absolute Intergenerational Mobility

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  • Yonatan Berman

Abstract

This paper combines cross-sectional and longitudinal income data to present the evolution of absolute intergenerational income mobility in ten advanced economies in the twentieth century. Absolute mobility decreased during the second half of the twentieth century in all of these countries. Increasing income inequality and decreasing growth rates have both contributed to the decrease, yet growth is the dominant contributor in most countries. We show that detailed panel data are effectively unnecessary for estimating absolute mobility over the long run.

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  • Yonatan Berman, 2022. "The Long-Run Evolution of Absolute Intergenerational Mobility," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(3), pages 61-83, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aejapp:v:14:y:2022:i:3:p:61-83
    DOI: 10.1257/app.20200631
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    Cited by:

    1. Amanzadeh, Naser & Heydari, Mohammad Sadra, 2023. "Absolute intragenerational income mobility in Iran," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 38-50.
    2. Robert Manduca & Maximilian Hell & Adrian Adermon & Jo Blanden & Espen Bratberg & Anne C. Gielen & Hans van Kippersluis & Keunbok Lee & Stephen Machin & Martin D. Munk & Martin Nybom & Yuri Ostrovsky , 2024. "Measuring Absolute Income Mobility: Lessons from North America and Europe," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 16(2), pages 1-30, April.
    3. Diogo G. C. Britto & Alexandre Fonseca & Paolo Pinotti & Breno Sampaio & Lucas Warwar, 2022. "Intergenerational Mobility in the Land of Inequality," CESifo Working Paper Series 10004, CESifo.
    4. Brea-Martinez, Gabriel, 2021. "The beneficial impact of mother’s work on children’s absolute income mobility, Southern Sweden (1947-2015)," SocArXiv c27s8, Center for Open Science.
    5. Tomas Kennedy & Peter Siminski, 2022. "Are We Richer than Our Parents Were? Absolute Income Mobility in Australia," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 98(320), pages 22-41, March.
    6. Manduca, Robert & Hell, Maximilian & Adermon, Adrian & Blanden, Jo & Bratberg, Espen & Gielen, Anne C. & van Kipepersluis, Hans & Lee, Keun Bok & Machin, Stephen & Munk, Martin D. & Nybom, Martin & Os, 2020. "Trends in Absolute Income Mobility in North America and Europe," Working Paper Series 2020:11, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    7. Celhay, Pablo & Gallegos, Sebastian, 2024. "Schooling Mobility across Three Generations in Six Latin American Countries," IZA Discussion Papers 17072, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    8. Yonatan Berman & Branko Milanovic, 2020. "Homoploutia: Top Labor and Capital Incomes in the United States, 1950-2020," LIS Working papers 806, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    9. Samuel Forbes & Stefan Grosskinsky, 2021. "A Study of UK Household Wealth through Empirical Analysis and a Non-linear Kesten Process," Papers 2107.02169, arXiv.org.
    10. Gabriel Brea-Martinez, 2023. "Materfamilias: the association of mother’s work on children’s absolute income mobility, Southern Sweden (1947–2015)," European Review of Economic History, European Historical Economics Society, vol. 27(1), pages 1-23.
    11. Celhay, Pablo A. & Gallegos, Sebastian, 2023. "Educational Mobility Across Three Generations in Latin American Countries," Research Department working papers 1906, CAF Development Bank Of Latinamerica.
    12. Nathan Deutscher & Bhashkar Mazumder, 2023. "Measuring Intergenerational Income Mobility: A Synthesis of Approaches," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 61(3), pages 988-1036, September.
    13. Timm Bönke & Astrid Harnack-Eber & Holger Lüthen, 2024. "The Broken Elevator: Declining Absolute Mobility of Living Standards in Germany," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 2068, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    14. Paolo Pinotti & Diogo G. C. Britto & Alexandre Fonseca & Breno Sampaio & Lucas Warwar, 2022. "Intergenerational Mobility in the Land of Inequality," CReAM Discussion Paper Series 2322, Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration (CReAM), Department of Economics, University College London.
    15. Liss, Erik & Korpi, Martin & Wennberg, Karl, 2023. "Absolute income mobility and the effect of parent generation inequality: An extended decomposition approach," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • J62 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Job, Occupational and Intergenerational Mobility; Promotion
    • N30 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy - - - General, International, or Comparative

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