Measuring Absolute Income Mobility: Lessons from North America and Europe

Robert Manduca, Maximilian Hell, Adrian Adermon, Jo Blanden, Espen Bratberg, Anne Gielen, Hans van Kippersluis, Keunbok Lee, Stephen Machin, Martin D. Munk, Martin Nybom, Yuri Ostrovsky, Sumaiya Rahman and Outi Sirniö

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 2024, vol. 16, issue 2, 1-30

Abstract: We use linked parent-child administrative data for five countries in North America and Europe, as well as detailed survey data for two more, to investigate methodological challenges in the estimation of absolute income mobility. We show that the commonly used "copula and marginals" approximation methods perform well across countries in our sample, and the greatest challenges to their accuracy stem not from assumptions about relative mobility rates over time but from the use of nonrepresentative marginal income distributions. We also provide a multicountry analysis of sensitivity to specification decisions related to age of income measurement, income concept, family structure, and price index.

JEL-codes: D31 G51 I31 J12 J31 J62 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/app.20210137 (application/pdf)
https://doi.org/10.3886/E176522V1 (text/html)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/app.20210137.appx (application/pdf)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/app.20210137.ds (application/zip)
Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Measuring absolute income mobility: lessons from North America and Europe (2024)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aea:aejapp:v:16:y:2024:i:2:p:1-30

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/subscriptions

DOI: 10.1257/app.20210137

Access Statistics for this article

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics is currently edited by Alexandre Mas

More articles in American Economic Journal: Applied Economics from American Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael P. Albert ().