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on Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty |
| By: | Francisco Ferreira (London School of Economics); Paolo Brunori (London School of Economics); Pedro Salas-Rojo (CUNEF) |
| Abstract: | Researchers have sought to quantify the extent of inequality that is inherited from previous generations in multiple ways, including a large body of work on intergenerational mobility and inequality of opportunity. Many of the most frequently used approaches to measuring mobility or inequality of opportunity fit within a general framework which involves, as a first step, an estimation of the extent to which inherited personal characteristics can predict current incomes. We suggest a new method, within that broad framework, which is sensitive to differences across the entire conditional distributions of relevant population subgroups, rather than just in their means – a feature that makes it particularly well-suited to measuring ex-post inequality of opportunity. Sensitivity to differences in higher moments of the conditional distributions allow for a more comprehensive assessment of inherited inequality. We apply this approach to household income distributions in China, India, South Africa, and the United States, to illustrate how the method performs in different settings. We find that inherited inequality accounts for large shares of total inequality, from 36% in the United States to 59% in China, 62% in India, and 81% in South Africa. |
| Keywords: | Inherited inequality, opportunity, mobility, transformation trees, China, India, South Africa, United States |
| JEL: | D31 D63 J62 |
| Date: | 2026–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:inq:inqwps:ecineq2026-691 |
| By: | David Lam; Murray Leibbrandt; Arden J. Finn; Nicola Branson |
| Abstract: | Inequality in education has declined substantially in South Africa since the end of apartheid, with inequality in years of completed education declining by all standard measures of inequality. At the same time, inequality in earnings has not shown significant declines, and has increased by some measures. Given the strong positive relationship between earnings and years of education, why hasn’t the decline in education inequality led to declines in earnings inequality? This paper explores this puzzle from both a theoretical and empirical perspective. We analyse how earnings inequality is affected by changes in returns to schooling when returns increase at some levels of schooling and decrease at other levels. We show that changes in the distribution of education over the 1994-2019 period would have significantly reduced earnings inequality in and of themselves. This was offset by disequalizing changes in the earnings-education gradient, including an increase in relative earnings for those with post-secondary education and a decrease in relative earnings for those with incomplete secondary education. The net result is a combination of decreasing schooling inequality and persistently high earnings inequality, |
| JEL: | D31 I24 I26 |
| Date: | 2026–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34869 |
| By: | Francisco Ferreira (London School of Economics); Paolo Brunori (London School of Economics); Guido Neidhofer (ZEW Mannheim); Pedro Salas-Rojo (CUNEF); Louis Sirugue (London School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | This paper argues that relative measures of intergenerational mobility and inequality of opportunity are closely related ways of quantifying the inheritability of inequality. We review both literatures for Latin America, looking both at income and educational persistence. We document very high levels of intergenerational persistence and inequality of opportunity for education, with inherited characteristics predicting 29% to 52% of the current-generation variance in years of schooling. Inherited circumstances are somewhat less predictive of educational achievement, measured through standardized test scores, accounting for 20% to 30% of their variance. Our estimates of inequality of opportunity for income acquisition suggest that between 46% to 66% of contemporary income Gini coefficients can be predicted by a relatively narrow set of inherited circumstances, making Latin America a region of high inequality inheritability by international standards. Our review also finds a very wide range of intergenerational income elasticity estimates, with substantial uncertainty driven by data challenges and methodological differences. |
| Keywords: | Inherited inequality, intergenerational mobility, inequality of opportunity, Latin America |
| JEL: | D31 I39 J62 O15 |
| Date: | 2026–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:inq:inqwps:ecineq2026-689 |
| By: | Luis Laguinge; Leonardo Gasparini; Guido Neidhöfer |
| Abstract: | Conditional cash transfer (CCT) programmes aim to break the intergenerational transmission of poverty by fostering human capital accumulation among children in vulnerable households. However, due to data limitations, evidence on their long-run effects remains scarce. This paper contributes to the literature in two main ways. First, by proposing a methodological approach to estimate the long-term impacts of CCTs in the absence of longitudinal data. |
| Keywords: | Conditional cash transfers, Human capital, Labour, Income, Brazil, Latin America |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp-2026-14 |
| By: | James J. Heckman; Haihan Tian; Zijian Zhang; Jin Zhou |
| Abstract: | Dynamic complementarity is the concept that past investments that lead to higher stocks of skill at one age promote the growth of skills from investment at that age. We define and provide evidence on dynamic complementarity using unique Chinese data from a home visiting program for young children targeted to parents in rural China. In addition, we investigate growth in learning due to innate, parental, and environmental factors that occur in the absence of any formal intervention. |
| JEL: | C1 C5 D83 J01 |
| Date: | 2026–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34833 |