The authors discuss the problem of overdispersion in large-scale data sets and its potential impact on standard model selection strategies. Overdispersion is considered to be present when the data display more variability than is predicted by the assumed sampling model. In a recent...

When economists are concerned with the inheritance of inequality, they typically focus on the intergenerational transmission of income or wealth. In contrast, sociologists are more likely to analyze intergenerational mobility between (and immobility in) different class positions.

McIntosh and Munk claim that the class schema developed by Erikson and Goldthorpe lacks validity and should not be taken as a basis for studies of intergenerational social mobility. Their paper is founded on a serious misconception of why the schema is in fact used by sociologists in mobility...