Robust Determinants of Intergenerational Mobility in the Land of Opportunity

This paper revisits the influential work by Chetty, Hendren, Kline, and Saez (2014) who attempt to explain the variation in intergenerational mobility across commuter zones in the US (i.e., spatial mobility) using nine classes of variables. We employ Bayesian model averaging methods that allow for model uncertainty to identify robust predictors of spatial mobility. In doing so we pay special attention to the specification of model and parameter priors. We also investigate the heterogeneous effects of these predictors on spatial mobility across commuter zones in different average income quintiles. Our findings suggest a more nuance and complex characterization of the spatial mobility process than that proposed by Chetty, Hendren, Kline, and Saez