The intergenerational elasticity of income is generally considered one of the best summary measures of the degree to which a society gives equal opportunity of success to all its members, irrespective of their family background. We present a parsimonious political economy model and show how the...

The intergenerational elasticity of income is considered one of the best measures of the degree to which a society gives equal opportunity to its members. While much research has been devoted to measuring this reduced-form parameter, less is known about its underlying structural determinants....