Microeconomics 13th Edition by Russell Sobel, David Macpherson, Richard Stroup, James Gwartney

Exercise 4

*Consider a table such as Exhibit in which the family income of parents is grouped by quintiles down the first column, and that of their offspring is grouped by quintiles across the other columns. If there were no intergenerational mobility in this country, what pattern of numbers would appear in the table? If the nation had attained complete equality of opportunity, what pattern of numbers would emerge? Explain.
Exhibit
Income Mobility-Income Ranking, 1994 and 2004
Source: Katherine Bradbury and Jane Katz, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston (http://www.bos.frb.org/economic/dynamicdata/module2/index.htm).