IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/osf/osfxxx/yjvru.html

Wealth Inequality and Intergenerational Income Mobility in the United States

Author

Listed:
  • Schechtl, Manuel

Abstract

Where income inequality is higher, intergenerational mobility in income is lower. Income inequality affects upward mobility because exposure to socioeconomic disparities during childhood influences economic opportunities. Beyond income, wealth is also distributed unequally and can facilitate the hoarding of opportunities. Therefore, this study inves- tigates whether wealth inequality is negatively associated with intergenerational income mobility. To examine the impact of childhood exposure to wealth inequality on upward mobility in income, this study utilizes a unique, novel database that makes local estimates of wealth inequality across the United States publicly available. Results from linear mod- els estimated by OLS reveal a clear, negative association between childhood exposure to wealth inequality at the commuting zone level and mobility outcomes later in life. This re- lationship persists when accounting for levels of income, wealth, and income inequality, as well as other economic and demographic characteristics. Static counterfactual simulations suggest that childhood exposure to wealth inequality has more significant consequences for upward income mobility than income inequality itself.

Suggested Citation

  • Schechtl, Manuel, 2024. "Wealth Inequality and Intergenerational Income Mobility in the United States," OSF Preprints yjvru, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:osfxxx:yjvru
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/yjvru
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://osf.io/download/65fadc8003143c0108864a6a/
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.31219/osf.io/yjvru?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hällsten, Martin & Pfeffer, Fabian T., 2017. "Grand advantage: family wealth and grandchildren's educational achievement in Sweden," Working Paper Series 2017:3, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    2. Lasse Eika & Magne Mogstad & Basit Zafar, 2019. "Educational Assortative Mating and Household Income Inequality," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 127(6), pages 2795-2835.
    3. Miles Corak, 2013. "Income Inequality, Equality of Opportunity, and Intergenerational Mobility," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 27(3), pages 79-102, Summer.
    4. Raj Chetty & Nathaniel Hendren & Lawrence F. Katz, 2016. "The Effects of Exposure to Better Neighborhoods on Children: New Evidence from the Moving to Opportunity Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(4), pages 855-902, April.
    5. Hornstein, Abigail S. & Greene, William H., 2012. "Usage of an estimated coefficient as a dependent variable," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 116(3), pages 316-318.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Xiong, Ning & Wei, Yehua Dennis, 2025. "Economic inequality, intergenerational mobility, and life expectancy," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 366(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. repec:osf:osfxxx:yjvru_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Jo Blanden & Matthias Doepke & Jan Stuhler, 2022. "Education inequality," CEP Discussion Papers dp1849, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    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. Francesco Andreoli & Eugenio Peluso, 2016. "So close yet so unequal: Reconsidering spatial inequality in U.S. cities," Working Papers 21/2016, University of Verona, Department of Economics.
    5. Chong Lu, 2022. "The effect of migration on rural residents’ intergenerational subjective social status mobility in China," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 56(5), pages 3279-3308, October.
    6. ANDREOLI Francesco & PELUSO Eugenio, 2017. "So close yet so unequal: Spatial inequality in American cities," LISER Working Paper Series 2017-11, Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER).
    7. Jan Stuhler, 2018. "A Review of Intergenerational Mobility and its Drivers," JRC Research Reports JRC112247, Joint Research Centre.
    8. Delis, Manthos & Fringuellotti, Fulvia & Iosifidi, Maria & Ongena, Steven, 2025. "Credit and entrepreneurs’ income," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    9. Andros Kourtellos & Chih Ming Tan & Steven N. Durlauf, 2022. "The Great Gatsby Curve," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 14(1), pages 571-605, August.
    10. Melissa S. Kearney & Phillip B. Levine, 2016. "Income Inequality, Social Mobility, and the Decision to Drop Out of High School," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 47(1 (Spring), pages 333-396.
    11. Falk, Armin & Kosse, Fabian & Pinger, Pia, 2020. "Mentoring and Schooling Decisions: Causal Evidence," IZA Discussion Papers 13387, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    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. Bonacini, Luca & Gallo, Giovanni & Scicchitano, Sergio, 2021. "Sometimes you cannot make it on your own. How household background influences chances of success in Italy," GLO Discussion Paper Series 832, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    14. Wang, Haijun & Ge, Chen & Du, Xiance & Feng, Yiqiang & Wang, Weicheng, 2024. "Does digital literacy reduce intergenerational income dependency?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 95(PB).
    15. Ke Meng & Shouhao Li, 2023. "Welfare Regimes and Intergenerational Social Mobility: An Institutional Explanation of the Great Gatsby Curve," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 165(1), pages 355-375, January.
    16. Steven N. Durlauf & Ananth Seshadri, 2018. "Understanding the Great Gatsby Curve," NBER Macroeconomics Annual, University of Chicago Press, vol. 32(1), pages 333-393.
    17. Ivanov, Denis & Ashyrov, Gaygysyz, 2024. "Wealth inequality and mega events," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    18. Jørgen Modalsli, 2017. "Intergenerational Mobility in Norway, 1865–2011," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 119(1), pages 34-71, January.
    19. Guangsu Zhou & Xiaoyu Bian, 2024. "The impact of intergenerational income mobility on internal migration in China," Economics of Transition and Institutional Change, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 32(1), pages 183-208, January.
    20. Iva Valentinova Tasseva, 2021. "The Changing Education Distribution and Income Inequality in Great Britain," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 67(3), pages 659-683, September.
    21. Bruce Weber & J. Matthew Fannin & Kathleen Miller & Stephan Goetz, 2018. "Intergenerational mobility of low‐income youth in metropolitan and non‐metropolitan America: A spatial analysis," Regional Science Policy & Practice, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 10(2), pages 87-101, June.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:osf:osfxxx:yjvru. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: OSF (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://osf.io/preprints/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.