
33 UNU-WIDER articles, publications, projects, experts...
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Policy Brief
Inequality in India on the riseFollowing the introduction of economic reforms in the early 1990s, India today is achieving unprecedented per capita growth rates. Poverty reduction has also accelerated and is justly celebrated. There is great concern, however, that this growth is...
Working Paper
Smoothing or strengthening the ‘Great Gatsby curve’?We examine the heterogeneous and dynamic impact of China’s New Rural Pension Scheme on intergenerational wealth dependence using a nationally representative longitudinal household survey covering the period 2011–13. We adopt an instrumental quantile...
Working Paper
Returns to education, intergenerational mobility, and inequality trends in BrazilEducation-related changes are often argued as the main reasons for changes in earnings distribution. However, omitted variable and measurement error biases possibly affect econometric estimates of these effects. Brazil experienced a sharp fall of...
Working Paper
Intergenerational mobility, human capital accumulation, and growth in IndiaProductivity and socio-economic progress are inter-connected. Economic growth funds policies that promote socio-economic progress, while the latter serves as a growth engine. A society with high mobility is one where individual achievements are...
Working Paper
Inequality trends and dynamics in IndiaIndia today is achieving per capita growth rates that are historically unprecedented. Poverty reduction has also accelerated. There is concern, however, that this growth is being accompanied by rising inequality. We report on a research project that...
Working Paper
Inequality and the generational economyDifferences in the economic lifecycle between countries at different levels of development suggest that there may be differences between sub-populations within countries, particularly where the sub-populations have different levels of income. Given...
Working Paper
Measuring social mobility rates in earlier and less-documented societiesIn societies where surnames are inherited from parents, we can use these names to estimate rates of intergenerational mobility. This paper explains how to make such estimates, and illustrates their use in pre-industrial England and modern Chile and...
Journal Article
Multigenerational mobility among males in IndiaMost studies of intergenerational mobility focus on adjacent generations, and there is limited knowledge about multigenerational mobility—status transmission across three generations. We examine multigenerational educational and occupational mobility...
Working Paper
Foreign aid and intergenerational mobility in AfricaWhile there is extensive literature examining the growth and development effects of foreign aid, very little attention has been paid to its potential impact on social mobility. Thus, this paper provides the first empirical evidence on the effects of...
Working Paper
Inequality of opportunity and intergenerational persistence in Latin AmericaHow strong is the transmission of socio-economic status across generations in Latin America? To answer this question, we first review the empirical literature on intergenerational mobility and inequality of opportunity for the region, summarizing...
Working Paper
Dynastic measures of inter-generational mobility with empirical evidence from IndonesiaWe suggest a simple and flexible criterion to assess inter-generational mobility. It accommodates different types of outcomes (continuous outcomes such as potential earnings, or discrete ones such as education groups) and captures dynastic...
Working Paper
Intergenerational mobility in occupational choicesHistorically, the issue of intergenerational evolution of income, wealth, and socioeconomic status has been the subject of considerable research in the analysis of inequality. Such intergenerational linkages are anticipated to come from two sources...
Working Paper
Multigenerational mobility in IndiaMost studies of intergenerational mobility focus on adjacent generations, and there is limited knowledge about multigenerational mobility—that is, status transmission across three generations. We examine multigenerational educational and occupational...
Working Paper
Whose intergenerational mobility?Various scholars have estimated levels of intergenerational mobility in OECD countries. Fewer estimates are available for developing countries, where mobility arguably matters more due to starker differences in living standards. This paper presents...
Book Chapter
Drivers of mobility in the Global SouthPart of Book Social Mobility in Developing Countries