Correlating Social Mobility and Economic Outcomes

Abstract

We construct comparable measures of intergenerational mobility (IM) for 103 Italian provinces using the methodology of Güell et al. (2007, 2015a) and explore their correlation with a variety of social and economic outcomes. We find that higher IM is positively associated with economic activity, education and social capital and negatively correlated with inequality. Moreover, there is no clear pattern of correlation with other socio‐political variables. These results are qualitatively similar to Chetty et al. (2014), with the important difference that Italy is a highly centralised state where institutions and policies are ‘de jure’ the same in all provinces. This suggests that something beyond institutional and policy differences also shapes intergenerational mobility.

Intergenerational Mobility in the Very Long Run: Florence 1427–2011

“…Looking at more recent evidence, according to the Eurostat data, in 2013, the purchasing power standard GDP per inhabitant in Tuscany was just slightly above the EU28 average. Moreover, Güell et al (2015a) provided evidence on the degree of intergenerational mobility for all Italian provinces (the data are referred to 2005); according to their evidence, the (simulated) intergenerational income elasticity for the province of Florence would be between 0.4 and 0.5, a figure that is slightly lower than that of Italy as a whole and broadly comparable with that of other advanced countries, such as the United States, the United Kingdom and France (Corak, 2013). 9 In sum, Florence does not seem to be a polar case in terms of economic development and (static and dynamic) inequality.…”

Countercyclical school attainment and intergenerational mobility

“…By identifying a channel through which the transmission of economic advantage fluctuates across cohorts, we contribute to the literature on the determinants of inter-generational mobility within countries -an exercise that is very data demanding (our sample features almost 200.000 adults with retrospective information, more than 20 cohorts across 96 local labour markets). Recent papers have empirically examined the geography of inter-generational mobility (Chetty et al, 2014); its evolution over time (Aaronson and Mazumder, 2008;Lee and Solon, 2009;Güell et al, 2014; Olivetti and Paserman, 2015; Barone and Mocetti, 2016); the role of women's rising labor force participation (Hellerstein and Morrill, 2011); the role of the education system (Oreopoulos and Page, 2006;Pekkarinen et al, 2009); the effect of worker displacement (Oreopoulos et al, 2008); and the correlation of mobility measures with economic and social outcomes (Güell et al, 2015). 3 Our results imply that a cohort exposed to worse economic conditions at age 16 (for instance, to the 75th percentile of the unemployment rate as opposed to 25th percentile) features an intergenerational elasticity of being employed in a white collar occupation that is 4% lower.…”

Correlating Social Mobility and Economic Outcomes

“… In Güell et al . ( b ), we present results based on ICSs computed using the net tax paid instead of taxable income as an indicator of economic success, and results are unchanged. …”