Work

Correlating Social Mobility and Economic Outcomes

Year: 2018

Type: article

Abstract: We apply a novel measure of intergenerational mobility (IM) developed by Guell, Rodriguez Mora, and Telmer (2014) to a rich combination of Italian data allowing us to produce comparable measures of IM of income for 103 Italian provinces. We then exploit the large heterogeneity across Italian provinces in terms of economic and social outcomes to explore how IM correlates with a variety of outcomes. We find that (i) higher IM is positively associated with a variety of "good" economic outcomes, such as higher value added per capita, higher employment, lower unemployment, higher schooling and higher openness and (ii) that also within Italy the "the Great Gatsby Curve" exists: in provinces in which mobility is lower cross-sectional income inequality is larger. We finally explore the correlation between IM and several socio-political outcomes, such as crime and life expectancy, but we do not find any clear systematic relationship on this respect.

Source: The Economic Journal

DOI: 10.1111/ecoj.12599

Authors: Maia Güell, Michele Pellizzari, Giovanni Pica, José V. Rodríguez Mora

Institutions: University of Edinburgh, University of Geneva, University of Milan, Centre for Economic Policy Research

Language: English

Topic: Intergenerational and Educational Inequality Studies

Subfield: Sociology and Political Science

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Reduced inequalities

Open Access status: green

Funders: Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, Ministério da Educação e Ciência