Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/96050 
Year of Publication: 
2013
Series/Report no.: 
Working Paper No. 2013-12
Publisher: 
Bar-Ilan University, Department of Economics, Ramat-Gan
Abstract: 
This paper proposes an explanation for the decrease in social mobility that has occurred in the last two decades in a number of advanced economies, as well as for the divergence in mobility dynamics across countries. Within an intergenerational framework, we show that a two-tier higher education system with standard and elite universities generates social stratification, high social immobility and self-reproduction of the elite. Moreover, we show that the higher the relative funding for elite universities, the higher the elite self-reproduction, and the lower social mobility. We also analyse the impacts of changes in the weight of the elite and of the middle class upon social mobility. Our findings provide theoretical bases for the inverted-U profile of social mobility experienced in several countries since World War II and to the Great Gatsby Curve relating social mobility to inequality.
Subjects: 
Elite
Higher Education
Selection
Social mobility
Social stratification
JEL: 
I21
J62
O15
Z13
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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