Nonlinearities in intergenerational earnings mobility:: Consequences for cross-country comparisons

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Bratsberg, Bernt; Roed, Knut; Raaum, Oddbjorn; Naylor, Robin; Jantti, Markus; Eriksson, Tor; Osterbacka, Eva
• 署名单位: University of Warwick; Abo Akademi University; Aarhus University
• 刊物名称: ECONOMIC JOURNAL
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0013-0133
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-0297.2007.02036.x
• 发表日期: 2007
• 页码: C72-C92
• 关键词: income mobility; norway

摘要

We show that the patterns of intergenerational earnings mobility in Denmark, Finland and Norway, unlike those for the US and the UK, are highly nonlinear. The Nordic relationship between log earnings of sons and fathers is flat in the lower segments of the fathers' earnings distribution - sons growing up in the poorest households have the same adult earnings prospects as sons in moderately poor households - and is increasingly positive in middle and upper segments. This convex pattern contrasts sharply with our findings for the US and the UK, where the relationship is much closer to being linear. As a result, cross-country comparisons of intergenerational earnings elasticities may be misleading with respect to transmission mechanisms in the central parts of the earnings distribution and uninformative in the tails of the distribution.