Less Equal and Less Mobile: Evidence of a Decline in Intergenerational Income Mobility in the United States

Moshe Justman and Anna Krush
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Anna Krush: Department of Economics, Ben Gurion University, Beer Sheva, Israel

Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series from Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne

Abstract: We use PSID data to 2008 to consider changes in the intergenerational elasticity (IGE) of income in fifteen successive ten-year cohort-groups of sons aged 36-45 between 1997 and 2011. Regressing sons’ estimated lifetime income on fathers’ income within each group, we obtain fifteen IGE estimates, which exhibit a significant rising trend, as do intergenerational correlations and rank correlations. The Gini coefficient of sons’ lifetime income within these groups exhibits a correlation of 0.71 with our IGE estimates, leading us to conclude that as the United States has become economically less equal in recent years it has also become less mobile.

Keywords: Intergenerational mobility; intergenerational elasticity of income; income inequality; attenuation bias (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J62 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 36pp
Date: 2013-12
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

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