A Theory of Intergenerational Mobility

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Becker, Gary S.; Kominers, Scott Duke; Murphy, Kevin M.; Spenkuch, Jorg L.
• 署名单位: University of Chicago; Harvard University; Northwestern University
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF POLITICAL ECONOMY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-3808
• DOI: 10.1086/698759
• 发表日期: 2018
• 页码: S7-S25
• 关键词: UNITED-STATES; income mobility; wage inequality; TRENDS; rise; opportunity; TECHNOLOGY; education; earnings

摘要

We study the link between market forces, cross-sectional inequality, and intergenerational mobility. Emphasizing complementarities in the production of human capital, we show that wealthy parents invest, on average, more in their offspring than poorer ones. As a result, economic status persists across generations even in a world with perfect capital markets and without differences in innate ability. In fact, under certain conditions, successive generations of the same family may cease to regress toward the mean. We also consider how short- and long-run mobility are affected by changes in the returns to human capital.