Applied Economics Lunch Seminar

Du 18/06/2024 de 12:30 à 13:30

R2.20

GABRIELLI Maria Valentina (PSE, ENPC)

Intergenerational Mobility in Latin America

This paper presents the first cross-country analysis of intergenerational economic mobility in Latin America. I exploit information on self-reported economic status for respondents and their parents, from an untapped dataset covering individuals born in 1940 to 1990 in 18 Latin American countries. In line with previous studies, the average intergenerational elasticity in the region is 0.66, indicating a strong intergenerational persistence of economic status. However, I find substantial country heterogeneities in terms of absolute and relative mobility across the countries in the sample. Richer countries are more likely to be more mobile. Furthermore, I show evidence of a decrease in both absolute and relative mobility across cohorts for most countries in the sample. From a public policy perspective, it is worrying that intergenerational mobility is low and that it has been decreasing over time because this implies the deepening of unequal opportunities. These findings, from a previously unused data source, point to new directions for future research.