Measuring upward mobility

Author / Creator

Ray, Debraj, author

Available as

Online

Summary

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: trans...

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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