Data and Code for: Measuring Intergenerational Income Mobility: A Synthesis of Approaches

Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s) Nathan Deutscher, Australian National University; Bhashkar Mazumder, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago

Version: View help for Version V1

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0_data			01/15/2022 01:16:AM
1_code			01/15/2022 01:17:AM
2_output			01/15/2022 01:17:AM
README.docx	application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document	33.5 KB	04/25/2022 09:52:PM
README.pdf	application/pdf	229.9 KB	04/25/2022 09:58:PM

Project Citation:

Deutscher, Nathan, and Mazumder, Bhashkar. Data and Code for: Measuring Intergenerational Income Mobility: A Synthesis of Approaches. Nashville, TN: American Economic Association [publisher], 2023. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2023-08-23. https://doi.org/10.3886/E155861V1

Project Description

Summary: The literature on intergenerational income mobility uses a diverse set of measures and there is limited knowledge about whether these measures provide similar information and yield similar conclusions. We provide a framework to highlight the key concepts and properties of the different estimators. We then show how these measures relate to one another empirically. Our main analysis uses income tax data from Australia to produce a comprehensive set of empirical estimates for each of 19 different mobility measures at both the national and regional level. We supplement this analysis with other data that uses either within or between country variation in mobility measures. A key finding is that there is a clear distinction between relative and absolute measures both conceptually and empirically. A region may be high with respect to absolute mobility but could be low with respect to relative mobility. However, within broad categories, the different mobility measures tend to be highly correlated. For rank-based estimators, we highlight the importance of how the choice of the distribution used for calculating ranks can play a critical role in determining its properties as well as affect empirical findings. These patterns of results are important for policy makers whose local economy might fare well according to some mobility indicators but not others.

Scope of Project

Subject Terms: Intergenerational mobility

JEL Classification:
J62 Job, Occupational, and Intergenerational Mobility; Promotion

Geographic Coverage: Australia (primarily)

Universe: Individuals born in Australia over the period 1978-82 (financial years), and their parents. Used to derive national and subnational estimates of intergenerational income mobility.

Data Type(s): aggregate data

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Published Versions

V1 [2023-08-23]

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