Mayer, Susan E., and Leonard M. Lopoo. 2005. “Has the Intergenerational Transmission of Economic Status Changed?” Journal of Human Resources 40(1): 169-185.

Only a few studies have tried to estimate the trend in the elasticity of children’s economic status with respect to parents’ economic status, and these studies produce conflicting results. In an attempt to reconcile these findings, we use the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to estimate the trend in the elasticity of son’s income with respect to parental income. Our evidence suggests a nonlinear trend in which the elasticity increased for sons born between 1949 and 1953, and then declined for sons born after that. Thus depending on the time periods one compares, the trend could be upward, downward, or flat. This and other factors help explain the different estimates for the trend in mobility.

Susan E. Mayer is dean and an associate professor at the Irving B. Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies and at the College at the University of Chicago. Leonard M. Lopoo is an assistant professor of public administration at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. The authors wish to thank Thomas DeLeire, Angela Fertig, Christopher Jencks, Helen Levy, Darren Lubotsky, Douglas Wolf, three anonymous referees, and participants in seminars at the University of Chicago and Harvard University as well as participants in a conference sponsored by Statistics Canada in Ottawa in February, 2001 for helpful comments and suggestions. Lopoo thanks the Bendheim-Thoman Center for Research on Child Wellbeing and the Office of Population Research, which is supported by center grant 5 P30 HD32030 from NICHD, at Princeton University for financial support. An earlier version of this paper was also presented at the 2000 Canadian International Labor Network conference. The data used in this article can be obtained beginning October 2005 through September 2008 from Leonard Lopoo, 426 Eggers Hall, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY 13244, <lmlopoo@maxwell.syr.edu>.