Publication

Intergenerational Income Mobility in France: A Comparative and Geographic Analysis

Journal of Public Economics (2023), with Gustave Kenedi

We provide new estimates of intergenerational income mobility in France for children born in the 1970s using rich administrative data. Since parents’ incomes are not observed, we employ a two-sample two-stage least squares estimation. We show, using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, that this method…

Working papers

Intergenerational mobility of immigrants in 15 destination countries

NBER Working Paper (2025), with 37 co-authors, R&R at American Economic Review
Coordination: Leah Boustan and Mathias Fjællegaard Jensen

We estimate intergenerational mobility of immigrants and their children in fifteen receiving countries. We document large income gaps for first-generation immigrants that diminish in the second generation. Around half of the second-generation gap can be explained by differences in parental income, with the…

The screening effects of naturalization costs

Latest version, with Yajna Govind, R&R at Journal of Public Economics

We study how changing citizenship costs affect naturalization decisions and the skill composition of naturalized immigrants. We develop a theoretical framework in which benefits from citizenship are heterogeneous and costs vary with skills. We test its predictions in a quasi-experimental setting…

International Variation in Inequality of Opportunity: Insights from 72 Countries

Research Square Working Paper (2026), with 17 co-authors,
Coordination: Francisco H. G. Ferreira, Vito Peragine, Paolo Brunori, and Pedro Salas-Rojo

Inequality is considered particularly unfair when it stems from factors beyond individual control, such as gender, ethnicity, or family background, rather than from personal effort or choices. This is what inequality of opportunity captures. There is growing evidence that it matters both intrinsically and…

Inherited Inequality in Latin America

Stone Center Working Paper (2025), with Francisco H. G. Ferreira, Paolo Brunori, Guido Neidhöfer, and Pedro Salas-Rojo

This chapter argues that relative measures of intergenerational mobility and inequality of opportunity are closely related ways of quantifying the inheritability of inequality. We review both literatures for Latin America, looking both at income and educational persistence. We document very high levels of…

Work in progress

International Variation in Intergenerational Income Mobility: A Meta-Analysis

Work in Progress

Intergenerational income persistence estimates are sensitive to methodological choices, such as the number of years over which income is averaged, the age at which it is measured, or the set of variables used to predict parental income when it is unobserved. In most cases, data constraints prevent…

Intergenerational Income Mobility Across Origins in France: The Role of Residential Segregation

Work in Progress

I investigate the differences in intergenerational mobility between children born in France to native versus immigrant parents. For most origin groups, and systematically among daughters, income gaps with children of natives disappear when comparing individuals whose parents had the same income. Still, a…