Do market-orientated economies with relatively large cross-sectional levels of inequality have higher income mobility … and therefore less permanent inequality? To answer this question, we introduce a formal representation of income mobility …

income inequality. To these ends, we use rich data from the United States and Norway over the period 1980-2007. We find … educated, we find strong but declining assortative mating by academic major. These findings motivate and guide a decomposition … educational assortative mating accounts for a non-negligible part of the cross-sectional inequality in household income. However …