Decomposing joint distributions via reweighting functions: an application to intergenerational economic mobility
提出一种将Oaxaca-Blinder分解扩展到结果全分布和连续群体隶属的方法，通过重新加权函数估计反事实联合分布，分解组成效应和结构效应，并应用于美国白人男性的代际流动性测量。
We introduce a method that extends the traditional Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition to both the full distribution of an outcome of interest and to settings where group membership varies along a continuum. We achieve this by working directly with the joint distribution of outcome and group membership and comparing it to an independent joint distribution. Like all decompositions, we assume the difference is partially due to differences in characteristics between groups (a composition effect) and partially due to differences in returns to characteristics between groups (a structure effect). We use reweighting functions to estimate a counterfactual joint distribution representing the hypothetical if characteristics did not vary according to group while returns to characteristics did. The counterfactual allows us to decompose differences between the empirical and independent distributions into composition and structure effects. We demonstrate the method by decomposing multiple measures of immobility for white men in the U.S.