Igmobil: A Command for Intergenerational Mobility Analysis in Stata

Abstract

In this article, I describe a new command, igmobil, that computes up to 20 intergenerational mobility (IGM) indices for continuous (that is, income or years of education) or discrete (that is, educational or occupational level) variables. I consider three classes of IGM indices: 1) single-stage indices, 2) indices derived from a transition matrix between parents’ and children's socioeconomic status, and 3) indices based on inequality measures. Users may add a fourth class to specify any possible IGM index not included in igmobil. Standard errors and confidence intervals are calculated using a bootstrap procedure. Users can customize many aspects of the program output, including the type and dimension of the transition matrix, the parameters for some IGM indices (like the ones involving generalized entropy measures and the Atkinson index), and how standard errors and confidence intervals are calculated.