A Theory of Intergenerational Mobility
基于人力资本理论，研究了横截面不平等与代际流动的关系，发现即使资本市场完美且无先天能力差异，富裕父母平均投资子女更多，导致经济地位在收入分布顶端更持久，且某些政府干预可能降低代际流动。
We develop a model of intergenerational resource transmission that emphasizes the link between cross-sectional inequality and intergenerational mobility. By drawing on first principles of human capital theory, we derive several novel results. In particular, we show that, even in a world with perfect capital markets and without differences in innate ability, wealthy parents invest, on average, more in their offspring than poorer ones. As a result, persistence of economic status is higher at the top of the income distribution than in the middle. Successive generations of the same family may even cease to regress towards the mean. Moreover, we demonstrate that government interventions intended to ameliorate inequality may in fact lower intergenerational mobility—even when they do not directly favor the rich. Lastly, we consider how mobility is affected by changes in the marketplace.