Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/195223 
Year of Publication: 
2015
Citation: 
[Journal:] Latin American Economic Review [ISSN:] 2196-436X [Volume:] 24 [Issue:] 1 [Article No.:] 9 [Publisher:] Springer [Place:] Heidelberg [Year:] 2015 [Pages:] 1-29
Publisher: 
Springer, Heidelberg
Abstract: 
This paper studies intergenerational mobility in Latin America and shows that, in addition to the well-documented fact that the Latin American income distribution is highly unequal, profound differences in opportunities persist from one generation to the next. Comparing final educational achievements for 18 Latin American countries, this paper finds that measures of the persistence in educational achievements across generations, such as beta- and partial correlation coefficients, are high. This persistence is correlated with high returns to education, relatively low progressivity in public investments in education, and inequality of opportunity. An index of inequality of opportunity (including dimensions beyond an individual's control such as race, gender and parental income background) is estimated at around 40 %, which is high by international standards. The paper also explores country differences in intergenerational mobility. While in Costa Rica, circumstances explain below 15 % of the observed variance in education, in Chile, they amount to almost half the explained variance. The findings imply that there is room for targeted redistributive policies that improve intergenerational mobility.
Subjects: 
Intergenerational mobility
Education
Latin America
Inequality of opportunity
Circumstances
JEL: 
I20
J62
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
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Document Type: 
Article

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