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Intergenerational Wealth Mobility in Rural Bangladesh

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  • M. Niaz Asadullah

Abstract

Unique residential history data with retrospective information on parental assets are used to study household wealth mobility in 141 villages in rural Bangladesh. Regression estimates of father--son correlations and analyses of intergenerational transition matrices show substantial persistence in wealth even when we correct for measurement errors in parental wealth. We do not find wealth mobility to be higher between periods of a person's life than between generations. We find that the process of household division plays an important role: sons who splinter off from the father's household experience greater (albeit downward) mobility in wealth. Despite significant occupational mobility across generations, its contribution to wealth mobility, net of human capital attainment of individuals, appears insignificant. Low wealth mobility in our data is primarily explained by intergenerational persistence in educational attainment.

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  • M. Niaz Asadullah, 2012. "Intergenerational Wealth Mobility in Rural Bangladesh," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(9), pages 1193-1208, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:jdevst:v:48:y:2012:i:9:p:1193-1208
    DOI: 10.1080/00220388.2011.646988
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    3. Francesco Pastore, 2016. "‘I Wish I Had 100 Dollars a Month …’ The Determinants of Poverty in Mongolia," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 28(5), pages 934-956, November.
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    8. Andrew Foster & Sveta Milusheva, 2015. "Household Recombination, Retrospective Evaluation, and the Effects of a Health and Family Planning Intervention," Working Papers id:7183, eSocialSciences.
    9. Emran,M. Shahe & Sun,Yan - GSP05, 2015. "Are the children of uneducated farmers doubly disadvantaged ? farm, nonfarm and intergenerational educational mobility in rural China," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7459, The World Bank.
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    11. Zafar, Rafia, 2022. "Intergenerational Mobility in Income and Consumption: Evidence from Indonesia," SocArXiv uzcfs, Center for Open Science.
    12. Dang, Thang, 2015. "Intergenerational mobility of earnings and income among sons and daughters in Vietnam," MPRA Paper 75357, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Emran, M. Shahe & Greene, William H & Shilpi, Forhad, 2015. "When measure matters: coresident sample selection bias in estimating intergenerational mobility in developing countries," MPRA Paper 65920, University Library of Munich, Germany.
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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • O53 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Asia including Middle East

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