Lands of Opportunity: Differences in the Geography of Wealth and Income Mobility in the United States

Ariel Binder (), Max Risch and John Voorheis
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Ariel Binder: U.S. Census Bureau
Max Risch: Carnegie Mellon, Tepper School of Business
John Voorheis: Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau

No 18651, IZA Discussion Papers from IZA Network @ LISER

Abstract: We provide new county-level estimates of intergenerational mobility, covering multiple economic concepts: total income, labor income, homeownership, housing wealth, and total wealth. This is possible via small-area estimation techniques and linked survey and administrative data covering millions of U.S. children born between 1978 and 1986. We find that relative mobility in wealth concepts shows less spatial clustering and more spatial variation than relative mobility in income concepts. Many cities and their suburbs exhibit lower relative mobility (i.e. higher intergenerational persistence) in wealth concepts than in income concepts. Next, we show that various local characteristics are associated with some concepts of economic mobility but not with others. For example, we estimate a strong negative association between the local severity of the Great Recession and child income, regardless of parent position in the income distribution. However, the negative association between recession severity and wealth only exists among children from poorer families. We provide a public-use data package to facilitate further research.

Keywords: housing markets; intergenerational mobility; homeownership; wealth; income; Great Recession (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D31 E24 O18 R31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-05
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