Good Entropy

Immigration, inequality and intergenerational mobility in the US | VOX, CEPR Policy Portal

A growing literature finds that the persistence of economic status is strongest in unequal societies such as Britain or Italy, and weaker in countries like the Scandinavian welfare states. While the US ranks among the least equal and mobile countries in the developed world, recent work shows that it contains places that span the global mobility distribution. In this column, we linked these two observations by studying the microcosm of Europe that arose as millions of immigrants crossed the Atlantic and settled over a century ago.