Recent Developments in Intergenerational Mobility

By Sandra E. Black, P. Devereux. Social Science Research Network, 2010

1,280 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Economists and social scientists have long been interested in intergenerational mobility, and documenting the persistence between parents and children's outcomes has been an active area of research. However, since Gary Solon's 1999 Chapter in the Handbook of Labor Economics, the literature has taken an interesting turn. In addition to focusing on obtaining precise estimates of correlations and elasticities, the literature has placed increased emphasis on the causal mechanisms that underlie this relationship. This chapter describes the developments in the intergenerational transmission literature since the 1999 Handbook Chapter. While there have been some important contributions in terms of measurement of elasticities and correlations, we will focus primarily on advances in our understanding of the forces driving the relationship and less on the precision of the correlations themselves.

Subfields: Economics and Econometrics, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/8497b7608107c53cf1100fdcd1791636ebba4d3c

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Economics and Econometrics

In Sociology and Political Science

Citations in the corpus

Innovation and Top Income Inequality (2018, background): “For prior surveys on intergenerational mobility, see Solon (1999) and Black and Devereux (2011). More specifically, in Jones and Kim (2014) entrants innovation only reduces income inequality because it affects incumbents’ efforts.”
Why Do Wealthy Parents Have Wealthy Children? (2020, positive): “The research to date has been limited in its ability to distinguish between selection and causation in the intergenerational correlation of wealth (for a recent review, see Black and Devereux, 2011). However, sorting out these scenarios is central to understand how economic conditions or government ”
The Transmission of Inequality Across Multiple Generations : Testing Recent Theories with Evidence from Germany (2018, neutral): “However, most studies focus on just two consecutive generations, parents and their children (Solon, 1999; Black and Devereux, 2011 for literature reviews).”
The Informational Content of Surnames, the Evolution of Intergenerational Mobility and Assortative Matin (2015, background): “Extensive literature surveys are available in Solon (1999) and Black and Devereux (2011). related, we are unable to determine the degree to which the economic well-being has been inherited.”
The Intergenerational Transmission of Cognitive and Noncognitive Abilities (2010, positive): “As is well known, random measurement errors will lead to an under-appreciation of the influence that parents have on their children (Black and Devereux, 2011).”
A Theory of Intergenerational Mobility (2018, neutral): “, Solon [1992], Mazumder [2005b], Clark [2014], and the studies cited by Solon [1999] and Black and Devereux [2011]).”
Cognitive skills, non-cognitive skills, and family background: evidence from sibling correlations (2016, neutral): “3 A growing body of literature in the field of intergenerational mobility analyzes the transmission of both cognitive and non-cognitive skills from parents to children (Black and Devereux, 2011).”
Returns to Skills Around the World: Evidence from PIAAC (2014, background): “16 Estimates of the intergenerational earnings elasticity have been found to double when sons’ earnings are measured in their 30s rather than in their 20s; see Solon (1999) and Black and Devereux (2011) for reviews.”
Breaking the Caste Barrier: Intergenerational Mobility in India (2013, methodology): “To account for both shortcomings, two alternative approaches to measuring intergenerational mobility have been proposed in the literature (see Black and Devereux (2010) for a review of the literature).”