By exploiting XGBoost and SHAP algorithms, this paper aims to reveal the importance of understanding nexus among parental characteristics for intergenerational mobility in educational attainment, especially from statistical learning perspective. Consistent with previous findings, both parents’ income head’s education are positively correlated child’s income. We also show strong low- high-income...

This paper examines unionism’s relationship to the size of the middle class and its relationship to intergenerational mobility. Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) 1985 and 2011 files are used to examine the change in the share of workers in a middle-income group (defined by persons having incomes within 50 percent of the median) and use a shift-share decomposition to explore how the decline ...

In this paper, we make two novel contributions to the literature on trade and inequality. First, we show that the same mechanism that causes greater cross-sectional inequality, higher relative demand for skill, also facilitates intergenerational occupational mobility. In particular, we develop a stylized model that shows that the innovation induced by international trade causes an increase in t...

Which colleges in America contribute the most to helping children climb the income ladder? How can we increase access to such colleges for children from low income families? We take a step toward answering these questions by constructing publicly available mobility report cards – statistics on students’ earnings in their early thirties and their parents’ incomes – for each college. We estimate ...

We document the intergenerational mobility of Black and White American men from 1880 through 2000 by building new historical datasets for late nineteenth early twentieth century combining them with modern data to cover middle century. find large disparities in mobility, children having far better chances escaping bottom distribution than every generation. This gap was more important proximately...