In empirical analysis, the Kakwani index is the most frequently used indicator for comparing progressivity across countries and over time. The Kakwani is often assumed to measure to what extent a policy design is targeted to the poor. It has, however, a major drawback: it is not defined for net...

We study social mobility by exploiting a newly collected dataset of the surnames contained in local newspapers during almost a century in the Italian Province of Modena (NUTS-3 level). Under the hypothesis that the surnames that appear in the newspapers have a particular social relevance,...