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Title: Intergenerational Mobility in the United States, 1850-1940: The Role of Maternal and Paternal Grandparents

Citation Type: Miscellaneous

Publication Year: 2014

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Abstract: This paper estimates intergenerational elasticities across three generations in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. We extend the methodology in Olivetti and Paserman (2013) to explore four different channels of intergenerational mobility: fathers- sons-grandsons, fathers-sons-granddaughters, fathers-daughters-grandsons and fathers-daughters- granddaughters. We document three main findings. First, there is evidence of a strong second-order au- toregressive coefficient for the process of intergenerational transmission of income. Second, the socio-economic status of grandsons is influenced more strongly by paternal grandfathers than by maternal grandfathers. Granddaughters, on the other hand, are more strongly influenced by maternal grandfathers. We propose two alternative theoretical frameworks that can rationalize these findings.

Url: https://economics.wustl.edu/files/economics/imce/olivetti_paper_0.pdf

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Authors: Olivetti, Claudia; Paserman, M. Daniele; Salisbury, Laura

Publisher: Boston University

Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Aging and Retirement, Family and Marriage, Migration and Immigration, Other

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