Opportunity, Mobility and the Intergenerational Transmission of Inequality

The research programme will focus on the following three areas:

1. Making sense of the myriad approaches to measuring intergenerational transmission and improving the comparability of these measures. 

Although there is much conceptual common ground among scholars analysing horizontal inequalities, opportunity and mobility, empirical findings are highly sensitive to methodological choices. This limits our ability to compare empirical results and to see the “big picture”. We actually know very little about how horizontal inequalities are distributed around the globe. This is due at least in part to the fact that our “findings” about horizontal inequalities are crucially dependent on the kinds of data we have: cross-section surveys versus panel surveys; surveys versus registries and other administrative data sources; income data versus data on surnames; etc.  Even among a certain class of surveys, much depends on sample size; the availability of information on circumstance variables; and so on. Moreover, different techniques, ranging from standard inequality decompositions to more sophisticated machine learning algorithms can also yield different “stories” (although sometimes there is a reassuring measure of agreement…).

There are also different practices as to whether intergenerational persistence should be studied looking at the transmission of a single outcome across generations, such as income or education; or incorporate the effect of a wider range of family and personal characteristics from one generation on the next. The research programme investigates what implications these data- and method-dependencies have for comparisons over time and, especially, across countries. The final aim is to propose methods to improve the comparability of measures obtained, across countries, over time, and across disciplines.

2. How do opportunity and intergenerational transmission relate to people’s understanding of fairness? Political philosophers, sociologists, economists and others have long grappled with the question of what makes a society just, or unjust.  For many, issues of inequality and inequity feature prominently, but there is a wide range of views as to which inequalities are acceptable or unacceptable; and as to how trade-offs that might arise between the pursuit of equity and other desiderata (such as certain rights and freedoms, or prosperity) should be dealt with.  This area or research lies at the confluence of many academic disciplines and could be a fruitful topic for work at the III. 

3.  What are the consequences of widespread unequal opportunity and intergenerational persistence?  When large groups of people – such as women; people of colour; people with disabilities; people of lower castes; and so on – are excluded from opportunity, it stands to reason that human talent is likely to be underdeveloped and underused.  Does this have consequences beyond unfairness – e.g. on the efficiency of resource allocation; on investment and growth; on people’s health; on crime or political conflict?

Global Estimates of Opportunity and Mobility
This database is a joint project of the International Ineqaulities Institute and a network of international research institutions: Department of Economics and Finance at the University of Bari, Italy. Centro de Estudios Espinosa Yglesias, Mexico, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, VélezReyes+ philanthropic platform, Center for Distributive, Labor and Social Studies, Argentina, Asian Develomnet Bank and Monash University, Australia.

Professor Francisco H G Ferreira, Amartya Sen Professor of Inequality Studies and Director International Inequalities Institute, LSE.

Dr Paolo Brunori, Associate Professorial Research Fellow, LSE III and Associate Professor of Public Economics, University of Florence.

Dr H. Xavier Jara, Assistant Professorial Research Fellow, International Inequalities Institute, LSE.

Dr Paul Hufe, Assistant Professor, University of Bristol.

Victoria Hünewaldt, PhD Candidate, Department of Economics, University of Siena.

Professor Stephen Jenkins, Faculty Associate, LSE III and Professor of Economic and Social Policy, Department of Social Policy, LSE.

Professor Stephen Machin, Director of CEP and Professor of Economics, Department of Economics, LSE.

Dr Daniel Mahler, Senior Economist, Development Data Group, The World Bank.

Dr Domenico Moramarco, Assistant Professor, Department of Economics and Finance, University of Bari Aldo Moro.

Dr Guido Neidhöfer, Senior Researcher, ZEW Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research and DAAD-Professor of Economics, Turkish-German University in Istanbul.

Dr Amaia Palencia-Esteban, Research Officer, International Inequalities Institute, LSE.

Dr Flaviana Palmisano, Associate Professor of Public Economics, Sapienza University of Rome.

Professor Vito Peragine, Professor of Economics, Department of Economics and Finance, University of Bari Aldo Moro.

Tatiana Pérez Martínez, Visiting Research Student, LSE III and PhD candidate in Development Economics and Local Systems, University of Florence.

Professor Patrizio Piraino, Professor of Education, Labor, and Development and Director of the Ford Program in Human Development Studies and Solidarity, Keough School of Global Affairs, University of Notre Dame.

Professor Lucinda Platt, Faculty Associate, LSE III and Professor of Social Policy and Sociology, Department of Social Policy, LSE.

Fabian Reutzel, PhD Candidate, Paris School of Economics.

Dr Pedro Salas-Rojo, Research Officer, International Inequalities Institute, LSE.

Dr Giovanna Scarchilli, Post-doctoral fellow, University of Milan.

Dr Louis Sirugue, Research Officer, International Inequalities Institute, LSE.

Dr Francesca Subioli, Visiting Research Student, LSE III and Post-doctoral Researcher in Economics, Roma Tre University.

Pedro Torres-Lopez, PhD Candidate, Department of Social Policy, LSE.

Dr Annaelena Valentini, Visiting Fellow, LSE III and Post-doctoral Researcher in Economics, University of Florence.

Dr Roy van der Weide, Senior Economist, Poverty and Inequality Research Team, The World Bank.

Yohei Yoshizawa, PhD candidate, Department of Political Economy, King's College London.

Dr Giorgia Zotti, Visiting Research Student, LSE III and Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Economics and Finance, University of Bari Aldo Moro.

Almås, Ingvild, Paul Hufe, and Daniel Weishaar (2025) “Experimental Evidence on Attitudes Toward Inequality and Fairness”, Annual Review of Economics, 17.

Alvaredo, Facundo, François Bourguignon, Francisco H. G. Ferreira, and Nora Lustig (2025): “Inequality bands: seventy-five years of measuring income inequality in Latin America”, Oxford Open Economics, 4 (S1), 9–35.

Arntz, Melanie, Cäcilia Lipowski, Guido Neidhöfer, and Ulrich Zierahn-Weilage (2025): “Computers as stepping stones? Technological change and equality of labor market opportunities”, Journal of Labor Economics, 43 (2), 503–543.

Attanasio, Orazio, Ana de La O, Francisco H.G. Ferreira, Ana Maria Ibáñez, and Julián Messina (2025): “Inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean: a wide-ranging review”, Oxford Open Economics, 4 (S1), 1–8.

Bell, Brian, Paweł Bukowski, and Stephen Machin (2024): “The decline in rent sharing”, Journal of Labor Economics, 42 (3), 683–716.

Boustan, Leah, Mathias Fjællegaard Jensen, Ran Abramitzky, Elisa Jácome, Alan Manning, Santiago Pérez, Analysia Watley, Adrian Adermon, Jaime Arellano-Bover, Olof Åslund, Marie Connolly, Nathan Deutscher, Anne C. Gielen, Yvonne Giesing, Yajna Govind, Martin Halla, Dominik Hangartner, Yuyan Jiang, Cecilia Karmel, Fanny Landaud, Lindsey Macmillan, Isabel Z. Martínez, Alberto Polo, Panu Poutvaara, Hillel Rapoport, Sara Roman, Kjell G. Salvanes, Shmuel San, Michael Siegenthaler, Louis Sirugue,Javier Soria Espín, Jan Stuhler, Gianluca L. Violante, Dinand Webbink, Andrea Weber, Jonathan Zhang, Angela Zheng, and Tom Zohar (2025): “Intergenerational Mobility of Immigrants in 15 Destination Countries”, NBER Working Paper, 33558.

Bracco, Jessica, Matías Ciaschi, Leonardo Gasparini, Mariana Marchionni, and Guido Neidhöfer (2025): “The Impact of COVID‐19 on Education in Latin America: Long‐Run Implications for Poverty and Inequality”, Review of Income and Wealth, 71 (1), 12687.

Brewer, Mike, Nye Cominetti, and Stephen P. Jenkins (2025): “What do we know about income and earnings volatility?”, Review of Income and Wealth, 71 (2), 70013.

Brunori, Paolo, Francisco H. G. Ferreira, and Guido Neidhöfer (2025): “Inequality of opportunity and intergenerational persistence in Latin America”, Oxford Open Economics, 4 (S1), 167–199.

Ciaschi, Matías, and Guido Neidhöfer (2024): “Job loss and household labor supply adjustments in developing countries: Evidence from Argentina”, The World Bank Economic Review, 38 (3), 558–579.

Costa, Rui, Swati Dhingra, and Stephen Machin (2024): “New dawn fades: Trade, labour and the Brexit exchange rate depreciation”, Journal of International Economics, 152, 103993.

Figari, Francesco, Carlo V. Fiorio, and Giovanna Scharchilli (2024): “Revisions in Personal Income Tax and Social Contribution Reductions in Italy in 2024: The Effects on Net Personal Incomes”,Politica Economica.

Fleurbaey, Marc, Peter Lambert, Domenico Moramarco, and Vito Peragine (2025): “Inequality decomposition analysis, the Lorenz curve and the Gini coefficient”, Social Choice and Welfare, 1–23.

Gil-Hernández, Carlos J., Salas-Rojo, Pedro, Guillem Vidal, and Davide Villani (2025): “Wealth and Income Stratification by Social Class in Five European Countries”, Social Indicators Research, 1–25.

Giupponi, Giulia, and Stephen Machin (2024): “Labour market inequality”, Oxford Open Economics, 3 (S1), i884–i905.

Hidayah, Isnawati, Asep Suryahadi, Flaviana Palmisano, and Jessica C. Kiefte-de Jong (2024): “The role of parental child marriage in children's food security and nutritional status: a prospective cohort study in Indonesia”, Frontiers in Public Health, 12, 1469483.

Hjalmarsson, Randi, Stephen Machin, and Paolo Pinotti (2024): “Crime and the labor market”, Handbook of Labor Economics, 5, 679-759.

Ivandic, Ria, Tom Kirchmaier, and Stephen Machin (2024): “International Terror Attacks and Local Out-Group Hate Crimes”, The Journal of Law and Economics, 67 (3), 589-610.

Jara, H. Xavier, Lourdes Montesdeoca, María Gabriela Colmenarez, and Lorena Moreno (2025): “Two decades of tax-benefit reforms in Ecuador: How much have they contributed to poverty and inequality reduction?”, World Development, 29 (1), 26–246.

Gasior, Katrin, H. Xavier Jara, and Mattia Makovec (2024): “Assessing the Effectiveness of Social Protection Measures in Mitigating COVID-19-Related Income Shocks in the European Union”, Economic Analysis and Policy, 83, 583–605.

Jara, H. Xavier, and Agathe Simon (2024): “A European unemployment benefit to protect atypical workers?”, Social Indicators Research, 171 (3), 967–986.

Jenkins, Stephen P. (2024): “Getting the measure of inequality”, Oxford Open Economics, 3 (S1), i156–i166.

Jolliffeⓡ, Dean, Daniel G. Mahlerⓡ, Christoph Laknerⓡ, Aziz Atamanovⓡ, and Samuel Kofi Tetteh-Baah (2024): “Poverty and Prices: Assessing the Impact of the 2017 PPPs on the International Poverty Line and Global Poverty”, The World Bank Economic Review, 035.

Machin, Stephen (2024): “Wage controversies: real wage stagnation, inequality and labour market institutions”, LSE Public Policy Review, 3 (2).

Machin, Stephen (2025): “Real wage and productivity stagnation”, Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 41 (1), 105–119.

Machin, Stephen, Sandra McNally, Camille Terrier, and Guglielmo Ventura (2025): “Closing the Gap Between Vocational and General Education?: Evidence from University Technical Colleges in England”, Journal of Human Resources.

Machin, Stephen, and Matteo Sandi (2025): “Crime and education”, Annual Review of Economics, 17.

Manduca, Robert, Maximilian Hell, Adrian Adermon, Jo Blanden, Espen Bratberg, Anne C. Gielen, Hans Van Kippersluis, Keunbok Lee, Stephen Machin, Martin D. Munk, Martin Nybom, Yuri Ostrovsky, Sumaiya Rahman, and Outi Sirniö (2024): “Measuring absolute income mobility: lessons from North America and Europe”, American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 16 (2), 1–30.

Maniquet, François, and Domenico Moramarco (2025): “Relative multi-dimensional poverty measurement and Deaton’s distance function”, The Journal of Economic Inequality, 1–12.

Nandi, Alita, and Lucinda Platt (2024): “Gender, immigration, and ethnicity”, Oxford Open Economics, 3 (S1), i335-i344.

Neidhöfer, Guido, Nora Lustig, and Patricio Larroulet (2024): “Projecting the impact of COVID-19 on education and intergenerational mobility in Sub-Saharan Africa”, The Journal of Economic Inequality, 1–26.

Palencia-Esteban, Amaia, and Coral del Río (2024): “Winners and losers from occupational segregation across Europe: the role of gender and migration status”, Migration Studies, 12 (1), 21–41.

Palmisano, Flaviana (2024): “Compassion and envy in distributional comparisons”, Theory and Decision, 96(1), 153–184.

Palmisano, Flaviana, and Agnese Sacchi (2024): “Trust in public institutions, inequality, and digital interaction: Empirical evidence from European Union countries”, Journal of Macroeconomics, 79, 103582.

Peragine, Vito,and Giovanni Vecchi (2024): “Measuring absolute poverty in Italy: methods and challenges”, Rivista Italiana di Economia Demografia e Statistica, 199–206.

Piraino, Patrizio, and Joanna Ryan (2024): “The price of fairness: Experimental evidence on the limits to demand for redistribution”, Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 227, 106737.

Platt, Lucinda (2024): “Race, ethnicity and immigration”, Oxford Open Economics, 3 (S1), i362–4.

Reutzel, Fabian (2024): “The grass is always greener on the other side:(Unfair) inequality and support for democracy”, European Journal of Political Economy, 85, 102600.

Roy, Sutirtha Sinha, and Roy Van Der Weide (2025): “Estimating poverty for India after 2011 using private-sector survey data”, Journal of Development Economics, 172, 103386.

Salas-Rojo, Pedro, Vanesa Jordá, and Paolo Brunori (2025): “Polarization of opportunity” Economic Letters, 253, 1–4.

Stacy, Brian, Lucas Kitzmüller, Xiaoyu Wang, Daniel G. Mahler, and Umar Serajuddin (2025): “Data use in social science and medical articles around the world”, PNAS nexus, 4 (6), 196.

Subioli, Francesca, and Michele Raitano(2025): “When mobility matters: a look at earnings dynamics across Italian generations”, Economica, 1–43.

Van Der Weide, Roy, Brian Blankespoor, Chris Elbers, and Peter Lanjouw(2024): “How accurate is a poverty map based on remote sensing data? An application to Malawi”, Journal of Development Economics, 171, 103352.

Van der Weide, Roy, Christoph Lakner, Daniel Gerszon Mahler, Ambar Narayan, and Rakesh Gupta(2024): “Intergenerational mobility around the world: A new database”, Journal of Development Economics, 166, 103167.

Biegert, Thomas, Özcan, Berkay and Rossetti-Youlton, Magdalena (2023) Household Joblessness in U.S. Metropolitan Areas during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Polarization and the Role of Educational Profiles. Socius, 9.

Blanden, Jo, Eyles, Andrew, and Machin, Stephen (2023) Intergenerational Home Ownership. The Journal of Economic Inequality, 21, 251-275, ISSN 1569-1721.

Brunori, Paolo, Ferreira, Francisco H.G. and Neidhöfer, Guido. (2023) Inequality of opportunity and intergenerational persistence in Latin America, WIDER Working Paper 2023/39. Helsinki: UNU-WIDER.

Brunori, P, Hufe, Paul, and Mahler, Daniel (2023). The Roots of Inequality: estimating inequality of opportunity from regression trees and forests. Scandinavian Journal of Economics. Advance online publication.

Brunori, Paolo, Ferreira, Francisco, and Neidhöfer, Guido (2023) Inequality of Opportunity and Intergenerational Persistence in Latin America (WIDER Working Paper No. 2023/39). Helsinki, Finland: UNU-WIDER.

Carranza, Rafael, Morgan, Marc and Nolan, Brian (2023) Top Income Adjustments and Inequality: An investigation of the EU-SILC. Review of Income and Wealth.

Costa-Font, Joan and Powdthavee, Nattavudh (2023) Does money strengthen our social ties? longitudinal evidence of lottery winners. Rationality and Society, 0(0).

Jenkins, Stephen P. and Rios-Avila, Fernando (2023) Reconciling reports: modelling employment earnings and measurement errors using linked survey and administrative data, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A: Statistics in Society 186 (1), pp. 110–136

Kenedi, Gustave, Sirugue, Louis (2023) Intergenerational income mobility in France: a comparative and geographic analysis, Journal of Public Economics.

Kuha, Jouni, Zhang, Siliang and Steele, Fiona (2023) Latent Variable Models for Multivariate Dyadic Data with Zero Inflation: analysis of intergenerational exchanges of family support. Annals of Applied Statistics, 17 (2). 1521–1542.

Luthra, Renee Reichl, and Platt, Lucinda (2023) Do Immigrants Benefit from Selection? Migrant educational selectivity and its association with social networks, skills and health. Social Science Research. Advance online publication, ISSN 0049-089X.

Palencia-Esteban, Amaia, and Salas-Rojo, Pedro (2023) Intergenerational Mobility and Life Satisfaction in Spain. In S. Bandyopadhyay and JG Rodríguez (Eds), Mobility and Inequality Trends (Research on Economic Inequality, Vol. 30) (pp 109–137). Bingley: Emerald Publishing Limited.

Palencia-Esteban, Amaia and Salas-Rojo, Pedro (2023) Intergenerational mobility and life satisfaction in Spain, Mobility and Inequality Trends.

Ashley, L., Boussebaa, M., Friedman, S., Harrington, B., Heusinkveld, S., Gustafsson, S., & Muzio, D. (2023). Professions and inequality: challenges, controversies, and opportunities. Journal of Professions and Organization, 10, 80-98. 

Baranowska-Rataj, Anna, Barclay, Kieron, Costa-Font, Joan, Myrskylä, Mikko and Özcan, Berkay (2022) Preterm Births and Educational Disadvantage: Heterogeneous Effects, Population Studies

Bauer, Annette, Araya, Ricardo, Avendano-Pabon, Mauricio, Diaz, Yadira, Garman, Emily, Hessel, Phillipp, Lund, Crick, Malvasi, Paulo, Matijasevich, Alicia, McDaid, David, Park, A-La, Silvestre Paula, Christiane, Zimmerman, Annie, and Evans-Lacko, Sara (2021) Examining the dynamics between young people’s mental health, poverty and life chances in six low- and middle-income countries: protocol for the CHANCES-6 study, Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology

Bauer, Annette, Garman, Emily. McDaid, David, Avendano-Pabon, Mauricio, Araya, Ricardo, Diaz, Yadira, Hessel, Phillip, Lund, Crick, Malvasi, Paulo, Matijasevich, Alicia, Park, A-La, Silvestre Paula, Cristiane, Ziebold, Carolina, Zimmerman, Annie and  Evans-Lacko, Sara (2021) Integrating Youth Mental Health into Cash Transfer Programmes in response to the COVID-19 Crisis in Low- and Middle-income Countries, Lancet Psychiatry

Bell, Brian, Blundell, Jack and Machin, Stephen (2022) Where is the land of hope and glory? The geography of intergenerational mobility in England and Wales, The Scandinavian Journal of Economics,

Bell, Brian, Costa, Rio and Machin, Stephen (2022) Why does education reduce crime?, Journal of Political Economy, 130(3): 732-765.

Blanden, J., Eyles, A., & Machin, S. (2023). Intergenerational home ownership. The Journal of Economic Inequality, 21, 251-275. 

Bloise, Francesco, Brunori, Paolo and Piraino, Patrizio (2021) Estimating intergenerational income mobility on sub-optimal data: a machine learning approach, The Journal of Economic Inequality, 19(4): 643-665.

Born, A. M. (2023). The long shadow of territorial stigma: Upward social mobility and the symbolic -baggage of the old neighbourhood. Urban Studies, 60, 537-553. 

Brunori, P., Davillas, A., Jones, A. N., & Scarchilli, G., (2022). Model-based Recursive Partitioning to Estimate Unfair Health Inequalities in the United Kingdom Household Longitudinal Study. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 204, 543-565. 

Brunori, P., Hufe, P., & Mahler, D. (2023). The roots of inequality: Estimating inequality of opportunity from regression trees and forests. Scandinavian Journal of Economics. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1111/sjoe.12530 

Brunori, Paolo, and Neidhöfer, Guido (2021) The evolution of inequality of opportunity in Germany: A machine learning approach, Review of Income and Wealth, 67(4): 900-927.

Brunori, Paolo, Trannoy, Alan and Guidi, Caterina Francesca (2021) Ranking populations in terms of inequality of health opportunity: A flexible latent type approach, Health Economics, 30(2): 358-383.

Burkhauser, Richard, Hérault, Nicolas, Jenkins, Stephen, and Wilkins, Roger (2021) What Accounts for the Rising Share of Women in the Top 1 percent?, Review of Income and Wealth

Burgess, Simon, and Platt, Lucinda (2021) Inter-ethnic relations of teenagers in England’s schools: the role of school and neighborhood ethnic composition, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 47(9): 2011-2038.

Cabrera, Leopoldo, Marrero, Gustavo, Rodríguez, Juan Gabriel, and Salas-Rojo, Pedro (2021) Inequality of Opportunity in Spain: New Insights from New Data, Review of Public Economics, 237(1): 153-185.

Costa-Font, Joan, and Cowell, Frank (2022) The Measurement of Health Inequalities: Does Status Matter?, Journal of Economic Inequality, 20: 299–325.

Costa-Font, Joan, Cowell, Frank and Sáenz de Miera, Belén  (2021) Measuring pure health inequality and mobility during a health insurance expansion: Evidence from Mexico,  Health Economics, 2021, 30(8): 1833-1848.

Cowell, Frank, and Flachaire, Emmanuel (2022) Inequality measurement: Methods and data, In Handbook of Labor, Human Resources and Population Economics, Springer International Publishing: 1-46.

Decerf, Benoit, Ferreira, Francisco, Mahler, Daniel, and Sterck, Olivier (2021): Lives and Livelihoods: Estimates of the Global Mortality and Poverty Effects of the Covid-19 Pandemic, World Development 146 105561.

Edmiston, Daniel, Robertshaw, David, Young, David, Ingold, Jo, Gibbons, Andrea, Summers, Kate, Scullion, Lisa, Baumberg, Ben, Geiger and de Vries, Robert (2022) Mediating the claim? How ‘local ecosystems of support’ shape the operation and experience of UK social security”, Social Policy and Administration

Fercovic-Cerda, Malik (2022) Disentangling Meritocracy Among the Long-Range Upwardly Mobile: The Chilean Case, Sociological Research Online, 27(1): 118–135.

Fercovic-Cerda, Malik (2021) Between success and dislocation: the experience of long-range upward mobility in contemporary Chile, Doctoral Dissertation, London School of Economics and Political Science

Ferreira, F. (2022). “The Analysis of Inequality in the Bretton Woods Institutions”, Global Perspectives. 2022.  https://doi.org/10.1525/gp.2022.39981. 

Ferreira, F. (2023). “What is the optimal level of inequality?” in Corinne M. Flick (ed.) Equality in an Unequal World. Berlin: Convoco Editions. 

Ferreira, Francisco H.G. (2022) Not all inequalities are alike, Nature 606 (7915): 646-649.

Ferreira, Francisco H.G. (2021) Inequality in the time of COVID-19, Finance and Development, 58 (2): 20-23.

Friedman, S. (2022). (Not) bringing your whole self to work: The gendered experience of upward mobility in the UK Civil Service. Gender, Work & Organization, 29, 502-519. 

Friedman, S., & Reeves, A. (2022). The cultivation of the synthetic gentleman: Exploring horizontal boundaries within the British elite. In Class Boundaries in Europe (pp. 75-97). Routledge.

Garman, Emily, Eyal, Katherine, Avendano-Pavon, Mauricio,  Evans-Lacko, Sara and Lund, Crick (2022): Cash transfers and the mental health of young people: Evidence from South Africa's child support grant, Social Sciences and Medicine

Haux, Tina, and Platt, Lucinda (2021) Fathers’ involvement with their children before and after separation, European Journal of Population, 37(1): 151-177.

Hecht, Katharina, and Summers, Kate (2021): The Long and Short of It: The temporal significance of wealth and income, Social Policy and Administration

Hoffmann, Mauricio Scopel, McDaid, David, Abrahao Salum, Giovanni, Silva-Ribeiro, Wagner, Ziebold, Carolina, King, Derek, Gadelha, Ary, Constantino Miguel, Eurípedes, de Jesus Mari, Jair, Augusto Rohde, Luis, Mario Pan, Pedro, Affonseca Bressan, Rodrigo, Mojtabai, Ramin, and Evans-Lacko, Sara (2021) The impact of child psychiatric conditions on future educational outcomes among a community cohort in Brazil. Epidemiology and Psychiatric Services, Epidemiology and Psychiatric Services

Kuha, Jouni, Bukodi, Erzsébet and Goldthorpe, John (2021) Mediation analysis for associations of categorical variables: The role of education in social class mobility in Britain, Annals of Applied Statistics, 15: 2061-2082.

Kuha, J., Zhang, S., & Steele, F. (2023). Latent variable models for multivariate dyadic data with zero inflation: Analysis of intergenerational exchanges of family support. The Annals of Applied Statistics, 17, 1521-1542. 

Luthra, R. R., & Platt, L. (2023). Do immigrants benefit from selection? Migrant educational selectivity and its association with social networks, skills and health. Social Science Research. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2023.102887 

Moor, Liz, and Friedman, Sam (2021) Justifying inherited wealth: Between ‘the bank of mum and dad’and the meritocratic ideal, Economy and Society, 50(4): 618-642.

Orton, Michael, Summers, Kate and Moris, Rosa (2021) Guiding principles for social security policy: outcomes from a bottom-up approach, Social Policy and Administration

Palencia-Esteban, A., & Salas-Rojo, P. (2023). Intergenerational Mobility and Life Satisfaction in Spain. In S. Bandyopadhyay & J. G. Rodríguez (Eds.), Mobility and Inequality Trends (Research on Economic Inequality, Vol. 30) (pp. 109-137). Bingley: Emerald Publishing Limited. 

Platt, Lucinda (2021): COVID-19 and ethnic inequalities in England, LSE Public Policy Review,

Robertshaw, David, Kate Summers, Lisa Scullion, Daniel Edmiston, Ben Baumberg Geiger, Andrea Gibbons, Jo Ingold, Robert De Vries and David Young (2022): “Welfare at a (Social) Distance: Accessing social security and employment support during the Covid-19 and its aftermath”, Covid-19 Collaborations: Researching Poverty and Low-Income Family Life During the Pandemics (https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv2mgg2qn.10).

Ryding, Tove Maria, and Voorhoeve, Alex (2022): Is the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's 2021 Tax Deal Fair?, LSE Public Policy Review (forthcoming).

Salas-Rojo, Pedro, and Rodríguez, Juan Gabriel (2022): Inheritances and Wealth Inequality: a Machine Learning Approach, The Journal of Economic Inequality, 20(1), 27-51.

Salas-Rojo, Pedro, and Rodríguez, Juan Gabriel (2021) The Distribution of Wealth in Spain and the USA: the Role of Socioeconomic Factors, SERIEs, 12(3), 389-421.

Sheehy-Skeffington, Jennifer (2021): Taking context seriously, Psychologist, 34(7): 50-53.

Summers, Kate, Fabien Accominotti, Tania Burchardt, Katharina Hecht, Elizabeth Mann and Jonathan Mijs (2022): Deliberating Inequality: A Blueprint for Studying the Social Formation of Beliefs about Economic Inequality, Social Justice Research

Teeger, C. (2023). (Not) feeling the past: boredom as a racialized emotion. American Journal of Sociology, forthcoming. 

Toft, Maren, and Friedman, Sam (2021): Family wealth and the class ceiling: The propulsive power of the bank of mum and dad, Sociology, 55(1): 90-109.

Voorhoeve, Alex (2022): Policy Evaluation under Severe Uncertainty: A Cautious, Egalitarian Approach, in C. Heilmann and J. Reiss (eds.) The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Economics. Routledge: 467-479.

Voorhoeve, Alex (2021): Equality for Prospective People: A Novel Statement and Defence, Utilitas, 33: 304-320.

Waldfogel, Hannah, Sheehy-Skeffington, Jennifer, Hauser, Oliver, Ho, Arnold and Kteily, Nour (2021) Ideology selectively shapes attention to inequality, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Ziebold, Carolina, Sara Evans-Lacko, Mário César Rezende Andrade, Maurício Hoffmann, Laís Fonseca,

Matheus Barbosa, Pedro Mario Pan, Eurípides Constantino Miguel, Rodrigo Affonseca Bressan, Luis Augusto Rohde, Giovanni Abrahao Salum, Julia Schafer, Jair de Jesus Mari and Ary Gadelha (2021): Childhood poverty and mental health disorders in early adulthood: Evidence from a Brazilian cohort study, European Child and Adolescent Psychiatry

Ziebold, Carolina, Cristiane Silvestre Paula, Iná Santos, Fernando Barros, Tiago Munhoz, Crick Lund, David McDaid, Ricardo Araya, Annette Bauer, Emily Garman, A-La Park, Annie Zimmerman, Philipp Hessel, Mauricio Avendano-Pavón, Sara Evans-Lacko and Alicia Matijasevich (2021) Conditional cash transfers and adolescent mental health in Brazil:  Evidence from the 2004 Pelotas Birth Cohort,  Journal of Global Health

Zimmerman, Annie, Crick Lund, Ricardo Araya, Philipp Hessel, Jualiana Sanchez, Emily Garman, Sara Evans-Lacko, Yadira Diaz and Mauricio Avendano-Pavon (2022): The relationship between multidimensional poverty, income poverty and youth depressive symptoms: cross-sectional evidence from Mexico, South Africa and Colombia, BMJ Global Health

 

Visions of inequality: from the French Revolution to the end of the Cold War

Hosted by International Inequalities Institute

Thursday 30 May 2024 at 6:30pm – 8:00pm. In-person event. Sheikh Zayed Theatre, Cheng Kin Ku Building. 

Speaker: Professor Branko Milanovic, Research Professor at the Graduate Center at City University of New York (CUNY), Senior Scholar at the Stone Center on Socio-Economic Inequality at CUNY, and Visiting Professor at the International Inequalities Institute at LSE

Chair: Professor Facundo Alvaredo, Co-Director of the World Inequality Database and the World Inequality Lab

Join us for this talk by Branko Milanovic about his new book, Visions of Inequality: from the French Revolution to the end of the Cold War.

A history of how economists across two centuries have thought about inequality, told through portraits of six key figures. “How do you see income distribution in your time, and how and why do you expect it to change?” That is the question Branko Milanovic imagines posing to six of history's most influential economists: François Quesnay, Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Karl Marx, Vilfredo Pareto, and Simon Kuznets. Probing their works in the context of their lives, he charts the evolution of thinking about inequality, showing just how much views have varied among ages and societies. Indeed, Milanovic argues, we cannot speak of “inequality” as a general concept: any analysis of it is inextricably linked to a particular time and place. Meticulously extracting each author’s view of income distribution from their writings, Milanovic offers an genealogy of the discourse surrounding inequality. These intellectual portraits are infused not only with a deep understanding of economic theory but also with psychological nuance, reconstructing each thinker’s outlook given what was knowable to them within their historical contexts and methodologies.

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Inequality Hysteresis: How can central banks contribute to an equitable society?

Hosted by the International Inequalities Institute

Monday 28 November 2022, 6.30pm to 8.00pm. Online and in-person public event. Hong Kong Theatre, LSE Clement House.

Speakers:
Dr Luiz Awazu Pereira da Silva, Deputy General Manager, Bank for International Settlements
Dr Benoit Mojon, Head of Economic Analysis at the Bank for International Settlements
Dr Deniz Igan, Head of Macroeconomic Analysis, Bank for International Settlements 

Chair:
Professor Kirsten Sehnbruch, British Academy Global Professor and Distinguished Policy Fellow, LSE III

Growing economic inequality has become a matter of increasing public and policymaking concern in recent years. Some have argued that unconventional monetary policies aggravated this trend, by boosting asset valuations and wealth inequality. The debate is intensified by deep recessions related to the Covid-19 pandemic and resurgent food and energy inflation increasing cost of living in 2022, which unequally impact different groups within society.

This event marks the launch of the book ‘Inequality Hysteresis’, which highlights a new facet of inequality: its persistence or ‘hysteresis’ after recessions. The book shows how inequality increases faster and more persistently in the aftermath of recessions and how greater income inequality is associated with deeper recessions, increasing the risk of an adverse feedback loop. For their part, central banks can most effectively contribute to a more equitable society by deploying the necessary tools to deliver on their mandated objectives of price and economic stability. Our speakers highlight the importance of taking inequality into account when designing and implementing fiscal and monetary policy.

Watch the video
Listen to the podcast

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Job Insecurity, Savings and Consumption: an Italian experiment

Part of the Inequalities Seminar Series

Tuesday 23 May 12.30pm to 1.30pm. Online and in-person public event. The Marshall Building - MAR 1.09.

Watch the event recording

Speaker:
Professor Conchita D’Ambrosio, Professor of Economics, Université du Luxembourg 

Chair:
Professor Francisco H. G. Ferreira, Amartya Sen Professor of Inequality Studies and Director, LSE III

Job insecurity has consequences outside of the labour market. Using the 2012 Fornero reform as a natural experiment, a difference-in-differences framework based on a firm-size discontinuity and individual data coming from the Italian Survey on Household Income and Wealth, our results suggest that greater job insecurity reduces consumption and increases savings. We also show that the changes in consumption and savings are a function of the family structure and of the rank in the household income distribution. Last, greater job insecurity reduces all types of consumption except food expenditures and the extra-savings are either invested in safe assets or kept on savings account.

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The Dynamics of Lifetime Incomes in France

Part of the Inequalities Seminar Series

Tuesday 9 May 12.30pm to 1.30pm. Online and in-person public event. The Marshall Building - MAR 1.09.

Watch the event recording

Speaker:
Professor Cecilia García-Peñalosa, Professor of Economics, Aix-Marseille School of Economics

Chair:
Dr H. Xavier Jara, Research Officer, LSE III

This seminar examines the evolution of lifetime earnings in France. We have access to complete earnings histories that allow us to compute lifetime earnings for the cohorts born between 1942 and 1962. The data show that after increasing for several cohorts, median incomes have been flat, although we do not find the decline in median lifetime earnings observed in the US. Lifetime earnings inequality exhibits small changes across cohorts, following a U-shaped pattern but without the marked increase observed in the US. The stability of lifetime inequality seems to be the result of a period of declining dispersion in annual (cross-sectional) earnings and a subsequent decrease in earnings mobility over the lifetime. These results point towards both institutions, such as the minimum wage, and social norms related to female participation as important factors in shaping lifetime earnings dispersion.

Dynastic measures of intergenerational mobility

Part of the III Inequalities Seminar Series

Tuesday 31 January 12.00pm to 1.00pm. Online and in-person public event. The Marshall Building - MAR 1.09.

Watch the event recording

Speaker:
Dr Flaviana Palmisano, Associate Professor of Public Economics, Sapienza University of Rome

Chair:
Dr Pedro Salas-Rojo, Research Officer, LSE III

This seminar suggests a simple and flexible criterion to assess relative intergenerational mobility. It accommodates different types of outcomes, such as (continuous) earnings or (discrete and ordinal) education levels, and captures dynastic improvements of such outcomes at different points of the initial distribution. We suggest an application on Indonesia. Using the IFLS data, we match parents observed in 1993 to their children in 2014, providing one of the rare intergenerational mobility analyses based on a long panel in the context of a developing country.

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Using Machine Learning to Decompose Inequality: The Case of Opportunity in South Africa

Part of the III Inequalities Seminar Series

Tuesday 25 October 12.30pm to 1.30pm. Online and in-person public event. LSE Centre Building, Room 2.05.

Speaker:
Dr Pedro Salas-Rojo, Research Officer, LSE III

Chair:
Dr Paolo Brunori, Assistant Professorial Research Fellow, LSE III

According to a widespread view a society achieves equality of opportunity when individuals exerting the same effort obtain the same outcomes regardless of circumstances that they cannot control such as gender, race, and socioeconomic background. This view was formalized by John Roemer in a number of influential contributions. We illustrate an exact analogy between how the phenomenon of inequality of opportunity may be measured and how transformation trees - a machine learning algorithm developed by Hothorn and Zeileis (2021) predicts an output variable based on a set of features. Then, we use data from South Africa (2017) to analyze inequality of opportunity. Our estimates show that the magnitude of this phenomenon is much greater than what has been suggested in the past. Limiting the analysis to only three circumstances - race, parental education and occupation - the Gini of inequality of opportunity ascends to 0.45, twice as large as previously estimated.

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Programme launch event: An Idea of Equality for Troubled Times 

Hosted by the International Inequalities Institute

Tuesday 3 February 2022. Online public event.  

Watch the video. Listen to the podcast.

Speakers: Professor Joseph Fishkin, Professor of Law, UCLA School of Law; Professor Marc Fleurbaey, Professor of Economics, Paris School of Economics; Dr Jennifer Sheehy-Skeffington, Assistant Professor of Social Psychology, LSE  

Chair: Dr Paolo Brunori, Assistant Professorial Research Fellow, LSE III 

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Upper secondary tracks and student competencies: A selection or a causal effect? 

Part of the Opportunity and Mobility Seminar Series

Wednesday 10 November 2021. Online public event.  

Speaker: Dr Moris Triventi, Associate Professor in Quantitative Sociology University of Trento  

Discussant: Dr Sara Geven, Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of Amsterdam 

Chair: Dr Paolo Brunori, Assistant Professorial Research Fellow, LSE III 

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Comparing Distributions of Ordinal Data: Theory and Empirics 

Part of the Opportunity and Mobility Seminar Series

Wednesday 17 November 2021. Online public event.   

Speaker: Professor Stephen Jenkins, Convenor, Global Inequalities Observatory Research programme, LSE III and Professor of Economic and Social Policy Department of Social Policy, LSE 

Discussant: Professor Vanesa Jordá, Associate Professor of Economics, University of Cantabria 

Chair: Fiona Gogescu, Doctoral student, Department of Social Policy, LSE 

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The Social Life of Inequality: why unequal countries stay that way 

Part of the Opportunity and Mobility Seminar Series

Wednesday 9 March 2022. Online public event.  

Watch the video. Listen to the podcast.

Speaker: Dr Jonathan Mijs, Lecturer in Sociology, Boston University and Visiting Fellow, LSE III 

Discussant: Siyu Li, PhD student, Lille Center for Sociological and Economic Studies and Research 

Chair: Asif Butt, PhD student, Department of Sociology, LSE 

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Expectations about the Productivity of Effort and Academic Outcomes: evidence from a randomized information intervention 

Part of the Opportunity and Mobility Seminar Series.Co-hosted by the ZEW – Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.

Wednesday 6 April 2022. Online public event. 

Speaker: Professor Emilia Del Bono, Professor of Economics, University of Essex, and Director of the Centre for Micro Social Change 

Discussant: Professor Matthias Parey, Professor of Economics, University of Surrey and ZEW Research Associate 

Chair: Dr Guido Neidhöfer, Senior Researcher, ZEW – Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research 

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Spatial & temporal disparities in air pollution exposure at Italian schools

 Part of the Opportunity and Mobility Seminar Series. Co-hosted by the Department of Sociology, University of Trento. 

Tuesday 10 May 2022. Online and in-person public event.  

Speaker: Risto Conte Keivabu, Researcher, Department of Political and Social Sciences, European University Institute 

Discussant: Giovanna Scarchilli, Post-doctoral Research Fellow, INEQUALITREES Project, University of Trento 

Chair: Emanuele Fedeli, Post-doctoral Research Fellow, INEQUALITREES Project, University of Trento 

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First Generation Elite: the role of school social networks  

Part of the Opportunity and Mobility Seminar Series. Co-hosted by the Department of Economics and Law of Sapienza University of Rome

Wednesday 25 May 2022. Online public event.  

Co-hosted by the Department of Economics and Law of Sapienza University of Rome 

Speaker: Professor Emma Tominey, Professor of Economics, University of York  

Discussant: Dr Anthony Lepinteur, Research Associate, Department of Behavioural and Cognitive Sciences, University of Luxembourg 

Chair: Professor Flaviana Palmisano, Associate Professor of Public Economics, Sapienza University of Rome 

 

SMOOTHIES

Survey to Survey Imputation when External Covariates Matter: Estimating Inequality of Opportunity in Mexico 

Friday 7 July 2023  

Speaker: Pedro Torres-Lopez 

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Measuring local, salient economic inequality in the UK 

Thursday 9 November 2023 

Speaker: Joel Suss  

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 Room for Happiness? Cultural Heterogeneity in Cross-Country Well-Being Comparisons Using Big Data 

 24 January 2024  

Speakers: Mateo Sere and Koen Decanq  

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 (Un)fair Inequality in the Labor Market—A Pilot.  

Wednesday 14 February 2024 

 Speaker: Paul Hufe  

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 Inequality Decomposition with Machine Learning Methods 

Thursday 28 March 2024  

 Speaker: Emmanuel Flachaire  

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 The Geography of Economic Mobility in 19th Century Canada 

Monday 14 October 2024  

 Speaker: Chris Minns  

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Estimating Intergenerational Mobility in Uruguay with administrative data 

Wednesday 13 November 2024  

Speaker: Tatiana Perez 

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The network of injustice: A novel approach to inequality of opportunity 

Thursday 5 December 2024  

 Speaker: Francesca Subioli  

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Social Mobility, Misallocation of Ability, and Economic Performance: A Lifetime Perspective 

Monday 9 December 2024  

Speaker: Matias Ciaschi  

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Measuring Family (Dis)Advantage: Evidence from Detailed Parental Information 

Wednesday 5 February 2025  

 Speaker: Sander de Vries 

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Locally Robust Estimation of the Intergenerational Elasticity 

Wednesday 19 February 2025  

Speaker: Alejandro Puertas 

 

 

Grants availble through the Opportunity, Mobility and the Intergenerational Transmission of Inequality programme:

• Sustainability Performances, Evidence and Scenarios 
• GEOM: The Opportunity and Mobility Lab – a grant from VelezReyez+ Foundation

• Opportunity Mobility and Inherited Inequalities PhD Visiting Grant (applications closed for 2025/26)