Geographic Variation in Multigenerational Mobility

Abstract

Using complete-count register data spanning three generations, we document spatial patterns in inter- and multi-generational mobility in Sweden. Across municipalities, grandfather-child correlations in education or earnings tend to be larger than the square of the parent-child correlations, suggesting that the latter understate status transmission in the long run. Yet, conventional parent-child correlations capture regional differences in long-run transmission and therefore remain useful for comparative purposes. We further find that the within-country association between mobility and income inequality (the "Great Gatsby Curve") is at least as strong in the multi- as in the inter-generational case. Interpreting those patterns through the lens of a latent factor model, we find that regional differences in mobility primarily reflect variation in the transmission of latent advantages, rather than in how those advantages translate into observed outcomes.