Income inequality and income intergenerational immobility are positively associated across countries. Here we provide an explanation for this association and show it is mechanically driven by the definition of the intergenerational earnings elasticity. This may hint that higher intergenerational...

This paper combines historical cross-sectional and longitudinal data in the US to study patterns of economic growth within the income distribution. We quantify absolute mobility as the fraction of families with higher income over a period of several years. The rates of absolute mobility over...