Decomposing joint distributions via reweighting functions: an application to intergenerational economic mobility

Jeremiah Richey and Alicia Rosburg

Econometric Reviews, 2020, vol. 39, issue 6, 541-558

Abstract: We introduce a method that extends the traditional Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition to both the full distribution of an outcome of interest and to settings where group membership varies along a continuum. We achieve this by working directly with the joint distribution of outcome and group membership and comparing it to an independent joint distribution. Like all decompositions, we assume the difference is partially due to differences in characteristics between groups (a composition effect) and partially due to differences in returns to characteristics between groups (a structure effect). We use reweighting functions to estimate a counterfactual joint distribution representing the hypothetical if characteristics did not vary according to group while returns to characteristics did. The counterfactual allows us to decompose differences between the empirical and independent distributions into composition and structure effects. We demonstrate the method by decomposing multiple measures of immobility for white men in the U.S.

Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/07474938.2019.1697088 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Decomposing Joint Distributions via Reweighting Functions: An Application to Intergenerational Economic Mobility (2016)
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:taf:emetrv:v:39:y:2020:i:6:p:541-558

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/LECR20

DOI: 10.1080/07474938.2019.1697088

Access Statistics for this article

Econometric Reviews is currently edited by Dr. Essie Maasoumi

More articles in Econometric Reviews from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().