Measuring Upward Mobility /
Ray, Debraj.
Measuring Upward Mobility / Debraj Ray ⓡ, Garance Genicot. - Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2022. - 1 online resource: illustrations (black and white); - NBER working paper series no. w29796 . - Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w29796. .
February 2022.
We develop a measure of upward mobility that distills central features of the relative and absolute approaches to measuring mobility. The former is embodied in the Growth Progressivity axiom: transfers of instantaneous growth rates from relatively rich to poor individuals increases upward mobility. The latter is embodied in the Growth Alignment axiom: mobility increases with higher growth for all individuals. These axioms, along with standard auxiliary restrictions, identify a simple one-parameter family of upward mobility measures, linear in individual growth rates and exhibiting geometrically declining weights on baseline incomes. A serendipitous implication of our measure is that it does not rely on panel data, which greatly expands our analytical scope to data-poor settings.
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Mode of access: World Wide Web.
Measuring Upward Mobility / Debraj Ray ⓡ, Garance Genicot. - Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2022. - 1 online resource: illustrations (black and white); - NBER working paper series no. w29796 . - Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w29796. .
February 2022.
We develop a measure of upward mobility that distills central features of the relative and absolute approaches to measuring mobility. The former is embodied in the Growth Progressivity axiom: transfers of instantaneous growth rates from relatively rich to poor individuals increases upward mobility. The latter is embodied in the Growth Alignment axiom: mobility increases with higher growth for all individuals. These axioms, along with standard auxiliary restrictions, identify a simple one-parameter family of upward mobility measures, linear in individual growth rates and exhibiting geometrically declining weights on baseline incomes. A serendipitous implication of our measure is that it does not rely on panel data, which greatly expands our analytical scope to data-poor settings.
System requirements: Adobe [Acrobat] Reader required for PDF files.
Mode of access: World Wide Web.