IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp6987.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Alike in Many Ways: Intergenerational and Sibling Correlations of Brothers' Earnings

Author

Listed:
  • Bingley, Paul

    (VIVE - The Danish Centre for Applied Social Science)

  • Cappellari, Lorenzo

    (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore)

Abstract

We model the correlations of brothers' life-cycle earnings separating for the first time the effect of paternal earnings from additional residual sibling effects. We identify the two effects by analysing sibling correlations and intergenerational correlations jointly within a unified framework. Our multi-person model of earnings dynamics distinguishes permanent earnings from transitory – serially correlated – shocks, allows for life-cycle effects and nests the models of previous research that have focussed either on intergenerational or sibling correlations. Using data on the Danish population of father/first-son/second-son triplets we find that sibling effects explain between one fourth and one half of inequality in life-cycle earnings, and largely account for individual differences in earnings growth. Intergenerational associations account for a considerable share of overall sibling correlations, between 30 and 60 per cent from youth to maturity. We also find that transitory shocks are correlated across family members, in particular between brothers. Extensions of the model show a distinctive effect of mothers' human capital on top of fathers' earnings and no evidence of differential intergenerational transmission between brothers.

Suggested Citation

  • Bingley, Paul & Cappellari, Lorenzo, 2012. "Alike in Many Ways: Intergenerational and Sibling Correlations of Brothers' Earnings," IZA Discussion Papers 6987, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6987
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp6987.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bhashkar Mazumder, 2005. "Fortunate Sons: New Estimates of Intergenerational Mobility in the United States Using Social Security Earnings Data," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 87(2), pages 235-255, May.
    2. O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), 2011. "Handbook of Labor Economics," Handbook of Labor Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 4, number 4.
    3. Michael Baker & Gary Solon, 2003. "Earnings Dynamics and Inequality among Canadian Men, 1976-1992: Evidence from Longitudinal Income Tax Records," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 21(2), pages 267-288, April.
    4. O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), 2011. "Handbook of Labor Economics," Handbook of Labor Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 4, number 5.
    5. Dean R. Hyslop, 2001. "Rising U.S. Earnings Inequality and Family Labor Supply: The Covariance Structure of Intrafamily Earnings," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(4), pages 755-777, September.
    6. Haider, Steven J, 2001. "Earnings Instability and Earnings Inequality of Males in the United States: 1967-1991," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 19(4), pages 799-836, October.
    7. Grawe, Nathan D., 2006. "Lifecycle bias in estimates of intergenerational earnings persistence," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(5), pages 551-570, October.
    8. Paul Bingley & Lorenzo Cappellari & Niels Westergård‐Nielsen, 2013. "Unemployment Insurance, Wage Dynamics and Inequality Over the Life Cycle," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 0, pages 341-372, May.
    9. Baker, Michael, 1997. "Growth-Rate Heterogeneity and the Covariance Structure of Life-Cycle Earnings," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 15(2), pages 338-375, April.
    10. Martin Nybom & Jan Stuhler, 2016. "Heterogeneous Income Profiles and Lifecycle Bias in Intergenerational Mobility Estimation," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 51(1), pages 239-268.
    11. Black, Sandra E. & Devereux, Paul J., 2011. "Recent Developments in Intergenerational Mobility," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 16, pages 1487-1541, Elsevier.
    12. Marianne E. Page & Gary Solon, 2003. "Correlations between Brothers and Neighboring Boys in Their Adult Earnings: The Importance of Being Urban," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 21(4), pages 831-856, October.
    13. Björklund, Anders & Jäntti, Markus & Lindquist, Matthew J., 2009. "Family background and income during the rise of the welfare state: Brother correlations in income for Swedish men born 1932-1968," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(5-6), pages 671-680, June.
    14. Øivind Anti Nilsen & Kjell Vaage & Arild Aakvik & Karl Jacobsen, 2012. "Intergenerational Earnings Mobility Revisited: Estimates Based on Lifetime Earnings," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 114(1), pages 1-23, March.
    15. Anders Bohlmark & Matthew J. Lindquist, 2006. "Life-Cycle Variations in the Association between Current and Lifetime Income: Replication and Extension for Sweden," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 24(4), pages 879-900, October.
    16. Sandra E. Black & Paul J. Devereux & Kjell G. Salvanes, 2005. "The More the Merrier? The Effect of Family Size and Birth Order on Children's Education," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 120(2), pages 669-700.
    17. Ostrovsky, Yuri, 2012. "The correlation of spouses' permanent and transitory earnings and family earnings inequality in Canada," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(5), pages 756-768.
    18. O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), 1999. "Handbook of Labor Economics," Handbook of Labor Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 3, number 3.
    19. Björklund Anders & Lindahl Lena & Lindquist Matthew J., 2010. "What More Than Parental Income, Education and Occupation? An Exploration of What Swedish Siblings Get from Their Parents," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 10(1), pages 1-40, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Corrado Giulietti & Enrico Rettore & Sara Tonini, 2023. "The chips are down: the influence of family on children’s trust formation," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 36(1), pages 211-233, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Paul Bingley & Lorenzo Cappellari, 2019. "Correlation of Brothers' Earnings and Intergenerational Transmission," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 101(2), pages 370-383, May.
    2. repec:ctc:serie1:def6 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Bingley, P. & Lorenzo Cappellari, 2013. "GINI DP 57: Alike in Many Ways: Intergenerational and Sibling Correlations of Brothers’ Life- Cycle Earnings," GINI Discussion Papers 57, AIAS, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies.
    4. Markus Jäntti & Stephen P. Jenkins, 2013. "Income Mobility," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 607, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    5. Martin Nybom & Jan Stuhler, 2016. "Heterogeneous Income Profiles and Lifecycle Bias in Intergenerational Mobility Estimation," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 51(1), pages 239-268.
    6. Ari Hyytinen & Pekka Ilmakunnas & Edvard Johansson & Otto Toivanen, 2019. "Heritability of lifetime earnings," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 17(3), pages 319-335, September.
    7. Julia Bredtmann & Nina Smith, 2018. "Inequalities in Educational Outcomes: How Important Is the Family?," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 80(6), pages 1117-1144, December.
    8. Doan, Quang Hung & Nguyen, Ngoc Anh, 2016. "Intergenerational Income Mobility in Vietnam," MPRA Paper 70603, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Paul Bingley & Lorenzo Cappellari & Konstantinos Tatsiramos, 2017. "Family, Community and Life-Cycle Earnings: Evidence from Siblings and Youth Peers," CESifo Working Paper Series 6743, CESifo.
    10. Stefanie Heidrich, 2017. "Intergenerational mobility in Sweden: a regional perspective," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 30(4), pages 1241-1280, October.
    11. Rolf Aaberge & Magne Mogstad, 2015. "Inequality in current and lifetime income," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 44(2), pages 217-230, February.
    12. Mohammad H. Sepahvand & Roujman Shahbazian, 2021. "Sibling correlation in risk attitudes: evidence from Burkina Faso," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 19(1), pages 45-72, March.
    13. Paul Bingley & Lorenzo Cappellari & Konstantinos Tatsiramos, 2014. "Family, Community and Long-Term Earnings Inequality," DISCE - Working Papers del Dipartimento di Economia e Finanza def017, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Dipartimenti e Istituti di Scienze Economiche (DISCE).
    14. Chen, Wen-Hao & Ostrovsky, Yuri & Piraino, Patrizio, 2017. "Lifecycle variation, errors-in-variables bias and nonlinearities in intergenerational income transmission: new evidence from Canada," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 1-12.
    15. Vladasel, Theodor & Lindquist, Matthew J. & Sol, Joeri & van Praag, Mirjam, 2021. "On the origins of entrepreneurship: Evidence from sibling correlations," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 36(5).
    16. Robert Lucas & Sari Kerr, 2013. "Intergenerational income immobility in Finland: contrasting roles for parental earnings and family income," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 26(3), pages 1057-1094, July.
    17. Bhashkar Mazumder, 2018. "Intergenerational Mobility in the United States: What We Have Learned from the PSID," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 680(1), pages 213-234, November.
    18. Gustave Kenedi & Louis Sirugue, 2021. "The Anatomy of Intergenerational Income Mobility in France and its Spatial Variations," SciencePo Working papers hal-03812824, HAL.
    19. Lefranc, Arnaud, 2018. "Intergenerational Earnings Persistence and Economic Inequality in the Long-Run: Evidence from French Cohorts, 1931-1975," IZA Discussion Papers 11406, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. Mello, Ursula & Nybom, Martin & Stuhler, Jan, 2022. "A lifecycle estimator of intergenerational income mobility," Working Paper Series 2022:21, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    21. Bertha Rohenkohl, 2019. "Intergenerational Income Mobility in the UK:New evidence using the BHPS and Understanding Society," Working Papers 2019017, The University of Sheffield, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    intergenerational transmission; sibling correlations; life-cycle earnings;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • J62 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Job, Occupational and Intergenerational Mobility; Promotion

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6987. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.