EconBase
← All papers

Nonparametric and Semiparametric Estimation of Upward Rank Mobility Curves

Tsung-Chih Lai, Jia-Han Shih, Yi-Hau Chen

arXiv 27 Sep 2025 · Econometrics

arXiv:2509.23174 · PDF · DOI · OpenAlex · Extracted main text

Abstract

We introduce the upward rank mobility curve as a new measure of intergenerational mobility that captures upward movements across the entire parental income distribution. Our approach extends Bhattacharya and Mazumder (2011) by conditioning on a single parental income rank, thereby eliminating aggregation bias. We show that the measure can be characterized solely by the copula of parent and child income, and we propose a nonparametric copula-based estimator with better properties than kernel-based alternatives. For a conditional version of the measure without such a representation, we develop a two-step semiparametric estimator based on distribution regression and establish its asymptotic properties. An application to U.S. data reveals that whites exhibit significant upward mobility dominance over blacks among lower-middle-income families.

Citation extraction

39
references
66
in-text mentions
39
distinct cited
0
self-citations
6,855
main-text words

appendix boundary found by appendix_command · 88% of the source is main text. Read the extracted text to check this.

Most heavily cited references

The works this paper leans on most, across its whole bibliography — not restricted to papers in our corpus. Ranked by composite intensity, which combines how often a work is mentioned, how many sections mention it, and how much of that falls in the main text rather than the appendix.

ReferenceIntensityMentionsSectionsMain text
1Bhattacharya, D. and B. Mazumder (2011) A nonparametric analysis of black-white differences in intergenerational income mobility in the United States1.000116100%
2Chernozhukov, V., I. Fernández-Val, and B. Melly (2013) Inference on Counterfactual Distributions0.9416383%
3Deutscher, N. and B. Mazumder (2023) Measuring Intergenerational Income Mobility: A Synthesis of Approaches0.81142100%
4Sancetta, A. and S. Satchell (2004) The Bernstein copula and its applications to modeling and approximations of multivariate distributions0.73732100%
5Janssen, P., J. Swanepoel, and N. Veraverbeke (2016) Bernstein estimation for a copula derivative with application to conditional distribution and regression functionals0.64441100%
6Callaway, B., T. Li, and I. Murtazashvili (2024) Distributional Effects with Two-Sided Measurement Error: An Application to Intergenerational Income Mobility *, Tech0.64422100%
7Chetty, R., D. Grusky, M. Hell, N. Hendren, R. Manduca, and J. Narang (2017) The fading American dream: Trends in absolute income mobility since 19400.64422100%
8Foresi, S. and F. Peracchi (1995) The Conditional Distribution of Excess Returns: An Empirical Analysis0.64422100%
9Millimet, D. L., H. Li, and P. Roychowdhury (2020) Partial Identification of Economic Mobility: With an Application to the United States0.51121100%
10Aaberge, R. and M. Mogstad (2014) Income mobility as an equalizer of permanent income, Tech0.40511100%

Showing the top 10 of 39 scored citations.