A Group-Specific Measure of Intergenerational Persistence

Abstract

This paper outlines a decomposition technique that allows for inter-group comparisons of intergenerational persistence in economic status, for groups whose means are different. It takes account of both within- and between-group sources of the covariance of parents’ and children’s outcomes, and yields results that are quite different, and arguably more meaningful, than the simple comparison of within-group regression estimates.