Summary The paper examines the structure and the extent of intergenerational income mobility in Germany. Using data from the German Socio-economic Panel it is possible to look at both, father-son and father-daughter pairs. In the present case the intergenerational income elasticity is 0.26 for...

This paper is the first to analyze the impact of family background on permanent earnings based on sibling correlations in Germany and to provide a cross-country comparison of Germany, Denmark, and USA. The main findings are that family and community background has a stronger influence on...