The transmission of inequality across multiple generations: testing recent theories with evidence from Germany

Sebastian Till Braun; Jan Stuhler

doi:10.1111/ecoj.12453

The transmission of inequality across multiple generations: testing recent theories with evidence from Germany

Sebastian Till Braun, Jan Stuhler

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Abstract

This paper shows that across multiple generations, the persistence of occupational and educational attainment in Germany is larger than estimates from two generations suggest. We consider two recent interpretations. First, we assess Gregory Clark’s hypotheses that the true rate of intergenerational persistence is higher than the observed rate, as high as 0.75, and time-invariant. Our evidence supports the first but not the other two hypotheses. Second, we test for independent effects of grandparents. We show that the coefficient on grandparent status is positive in a wide class of Markovian models, and present evidence against its causal interpretation.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	576-611
Journal	The Economic Journal
Volume	128
Issue number	609
Early online date	31 Jul 2017
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1111/ecoj.12453
Publication status	Published - 2 Mar 2018

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Multigenerational_Results COMPLETE
Copyright © 2016, Royal Economic Society. This work is made available online in accordance with the publisher’s policies. This is the author created, accepted version manuscript following peer review and may differ slightly from the final published version. The final published version of this work is available at https://doi.org/10.1111/ecoj.12453
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title = "The transmission of inequality across multiple generations: testing recent theories with evidence from Germany",

abstract = "This paper shows that across multiple generations, the persistence of occupational and educational attainment in Germany is larger than estimates from two generations suggest. We consider two recent interpretations. First, we assess Gregory Clark{\textquoteright}s hypotheses that the true rate of intergenerational persistence is higher than the observed rate, as high as 0.75, and time-invariant. Our evidence supports the first but not the other two hypotheses. Second, we test for independent effects of grandparents. We show that the coefficient on grandparent status is positive in a wide class of Markovian models, and present evidence against its causal interpretation.",

author = "Braun, {Sebastian Till} and Jan Stuhler",

note = "Sebastian Braun gratefully acknowledges funding by the Fritz-Thyssen Stiftung. Jan Stuhler gratefully acknowledges support from the Ministerio Econom{\'i}a y Competitividad (Spain, MDM 2014-0431 and ECO2014-55858-P) and Comunidad de Madrid (MadEco-CM S2015/HUM-3444).",

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N2 - This paper shows that across multiple generations, the persistence of occupational and educational attainment in Germany is larger than estimates from two generations suggest. We consider two recent interpretations. First, we assess Gregory Clark’s hypotheses that the true rate of intergenerational persistence is higher than the observed rate, as high as 0.75, and time-invariant. Our evidence supports the first but not the other two hypotheses. Second, we test for independent effects of grandparents. We show that the coefficient on grandparent status is positive in a wide class of Markovian models, and present evidence against its causal interpretation.

AB - This paper shows that across multiple generations, the persistence of occupational and educational attainment in Germany is larger than estimates from two generations suggest. We consider two recent interpretations. First, we assess Gregory Clark’s hypotheses that the true rate of intergenerational persistence is higher than the observed rate, as high as 0.75, and time-invariant. Our evidence supports the first but not the other two hypotheses. Second, we test for independent effects of grandparents. We show that the coefficient on grandparent status is positive in a wide class of Markovian models, and present evidence against its causal interpretation.

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JO - The Economic Journal

JF - The Economic Journal

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The transmission of inequality across multiple generations: testing recent theories with evidence from Germany

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