Intergenerational Income Mobility in the United States

Social scientists and policy analysts have long expressed concern about the extent of intergenerational income mobility in the United States, but remarkably little empirical evidence is available. The few existing estimates of the intergenerational correlation in income have been biased downward by measurement error, unrepresentative samples, or both. New estimates based on intergenerational data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics imply that the intergenerational correlation in long-run income is at least 0.4, indicating dramatically less mobility than suggested by earlier research. Copyright 1992 by American Economic Association.

[1]  Gary Solon,et al.  The Association between Men's Economic Status and Their Family and Community Origins , 1992 .

[2]  David J. Zimmerman,et al.  Regression Toward Mediocrity in Economic Stature , 1992 .

[3]  Joseph G. Altonji,et al.  Relationships Among the Family Incomes and Labor Market Outcomes of Relatives , 1991 .

[4]  Gary Solon,et al.  A Longitudinal Analysis of Sibling Correlations in Economic Status , 1991 .

[5]  William Michael Douglas Baker.  Essays on unemployment spell duration and life cycle earnings. , 1990 .

[6]  W. Grubb,et al.  Sources of Increasing Inequality in Wages and Salaries, 1960-80. , 1989 .

[7]  Sean Becketti,et al.  The Panel Study of Income Dynamics after Fourteen Years: An Evaluation , 1988, Journal of Labor Economics.

[8]  G. Becker.  Family Economics and Macro Behavior , 1988 .

[9]  G. Duncan,et al.  Parental Family Income and the Socioeconomic Attainment of Children , 1987 .

[10]  Chris Robinson,et al.  Cautionary Tails about Arbitrary Deletion of Observations; or, Throwing the Variance Out with the Bathwater , 1985, Journal of Labor Economics.

[11]  J. Behrman,et al.  Intergenerational Earnings Mobility in the United States: Some Estimates and a Test of Becker's Intergenerational Endowments Model , 1985 .

[12]  R. Gordon.  Differences in Earnings and Ability , 1984 .

[13]  P. Gottschalk,et al.  Earnings Inequality among Males in the United States: Trends and the Effect of Labor Force Growth , 1984, Journal of Political Economy.

[14]  Gary Solon,et al.  Estimating Autocorrelations in Fixed-Effects Models , 1984 .

[15]  A. Atkinson,et al.  Parents and Children: Incomes in Two Generations , 1983 .

[16]  R. Hauser,et al.  Response Variability in Self-and Proxy Reports of Paternal and Filial Socioeconomic Characteristics , 1983, American Journal of Sociology.

[17]  Arthur S. Goldberger,et al.  Linear regression after selection , 1981 .

[18]  M. Kilson.  Black Social Classes and Intergenerational Poverty. , 1981 .

[19]  H. White.  A Heteroskedasticity-Consistent Covariance Matrix Estimator and a Direct Test for Heteroskedasticity , 1980 .

[20]  J. Behrman,et al.  Socioeconomic Success: A Study of the Effects of Genetic Endowments , 1980 .

[21]  P. Menchik.  Inter-generational Transmission of Inequality: An Empirical Study of Wealth Mobility , 1979 .

[22]  Robert J. Willis,et al.  Dynamic Aspects of Earning Mobility , 1978 .

[23]  Robert M. Hauser,et al.  Response Error in Earnings Functions for Nonblack Males , 1977 .

[24]  Robert M. Hauser,et al.  The Process of Stratification: Trends and Analyses , 1977 .

[25]  R. Hauser,et al.  Education, occupation, and earnings : achievement in the early career , 1976 .

[26]  J. Morgan,et al.  A Panel Study of Income Dynamics: Procedures and tape codes, 1975 interviewing year; wave VIII: A supplement , 1973 .

[27]  O. D. Duncan,et al.  Socioeconomic Background and Achievement. , 1974 .

[28]  S. Bowles.  Schooling and Inequality from Generation to Generation , 1972, Journal of Political Economy.

[29]  M. Harrington,et al.  Book Review: Labor Conditions and Problems: The other America: Poverty in the United States , 1963 .

[30]  M. Harrington.  The Other America : Poverty in the United States , 1964 .