IESET.
Hypotheses·distribution·intergenerational_mobility_cross_country

Cross-country variation in intergenerational income mobility (commonly measured as the rank-rank slope or intergenerational income elasticity) across OECD countries is substantially explained by institutional determinants — education-system equality of provision, residential segregation, and housing affordability — rather than by the aggregate redistribution level.

Specifically: countries with more equal public education spending across school districts, lower residential income segregation, and more affordable housing in high-opportunity regions should show higher mobility after controlling for GDP per capita, the level of disposable-income Gini, and institutional quality. The claim aligns with the Chetty-Hendren-Kline-Saez opportunity-atlas finding that mobility is generated by place-based mechanisms more than by transfer-based redistribution, and generalises it cross-country.

INCONCLUSIVEengine/runs/intergenerational_mobility_cross_country

INCONCLUSIVE_DATA_PENDING — no outcome or no treatment variable in spec

confidence cueResult card produced; verdict unclassified.

policy briefCoverage too thin

In ordinary language

Do children have a better shot at moving up when schools, housing, and neighborhoods give them access to opportunity, rather than simply because a country redistributes more income?

plain answer

This test cannot make a firm call yet. no outcome or no treatment variable in spec

why it matters

Distributional claims often sound morally clear but are empirically complex. This test asks whether the proposed channel explains real differences across places.

how the test works

It compares 20 country or place units from 1990 to 2020, using a panel fe design.

what was measured
Possible pathway
  • Unequal school funding
  • Income separation between neighborhoods
What we checked
  • How strongly parents' income predicts their children's income
  • Chance that children from low-income families reach the top
what this does not prove

A single test is not the whole truth. It narrows the claim under a specific sample, time period, and method. Strong policy conclusions need the pattern to survive nearby tests, alternative data, and serious objections.

verification

8 input datasets, 0 unresolved missing series, provenance status: reproducible hash verified.

Results

engine/runs/intergenerational_mobility_cross_country
1007550250199020052020USAGBRCANAUSFRADEUITA
illustrative sketch · run pending
No coefficients yet. When the model fires, this chart will show intergenerational_earnings_elasticity across 20 sampled countries over 1990–2020.
The shapes above are stylised — none of the lines are real data.
Placeholder for intergenerational_mobility_cross_country. Published chart will be generated from engine/runs/intergenerational_mobility_cross_country/chart_data.json.

Who has skin in the game — schools predicting on this

17 schools list this hypothesis as a test of their position. The chips below are school-level scoreboard outcomes, not a second hypothesis verdict.

hypothesis verdict vs scoreboard outcome

The banner verdict judges this hypothesis as written. The scoreboard asks whether each school's polarity-corrected prediction was right. Raw status is not a school win: SUPPORTED supports schools that needed SUPPORTED, but refutes schools that needed REFUTED.

Austrian Business Cycle Theory (ABCT)wins if MIXEDpartial/no-callChicago School Monetarismwins if MIXEDpartial/no-callClassical Liberalwins if MIXEDpartial/no-callDegrowth / Ecological Macroeconomicswins if MIXEDpartial/no-callDemocratic Socialism (Bernsteinian revisionism + modern)wins if SUPPORTEDpartial/no-callStructuralist / Developmentalistwins if SUPPORTEDpartial/no-callEco-Socialism / Red-Greenwins if MIXEDpartial/no-callEmpirical Pragmatist (the framework's house position)wins if SUPPORTEDpartial/no-callNew Institutional Economicswins if SUPPORTEDpartial/no-callMarket Socialism (Lange-Lerner tradition)wins if SUPPORTEDpartial/no-callMarxian Political Economywins if MIXEDpartial/no-callMarxism-Leninism (central-planning implementation)wins if MIXEDpartial/no-callModern Monetary Theorywins if MIXEDpartial/no-callNew Keynesian (mainstream synthesis)wins if SUPPORTEDpartial/no-callOrdoliberalism (Freiburg School)wins if SUPPORTEDpartial/no-callPost-Keynesianwins if SUPPORTEDpartial/no-callSocial Democraticwins if SUPPORTEDpartial/no-call

Pre-registration

pre-registered
first-spec commit bae09ab · 2026-04-29T22:09:42Z
run generated · 2026-06-29T17:48:34Z

Cross-country variation in intergenerational income mobility (commonly measured as the rank-rank slope or intergenerational income elasticity) across OECD countries is substantially explained by institutional determinants — education-system equality of provision, residential segregation, and housing affordability — rather than by the aggregate redistribution level. Specifically: countries with more equal public education spending across school districts, lower residential income segregation, and more affordable housing in high-opportunity regions should show higher mobility after controlling for GDP per capita, the level of disposable-income Gini, and institutional quality. The claim aligns with the Chetty-Hendren-Kline-Saez opportunity-atlas finding that mobility is generated by place-based mechanisms more than by transfer-based redistribution, and generalises it cross-country.

Falsification criterion — what would disprove this

set before the run · honoured after

This hypothesis is considered falsified if:

Not supported if the three institutional channels (education inequality, residential segregation, housing affordability) jointly account for less than 40 percent of R-squared in the cross-country mobility regression after controlling for GDP per capita, Gini, and government effectiveness. Separately, if disposable-income Gini alone (controlling for nothing else) explains more variation than the three institutional channels combined, the "institutional determinants more than redistribution level" framing is weakened and the Piketty-style "compressed income distributions mechanically produce mobility" reading earns standing. Given n ~ 20 and the resulting statistical power limits, robust findings require the institutional-channel result to survive leave-one-out robustness (no single country swings the conclusion).

formal test & threshold
test:      partial_r2_channels_vs_gini_plus_loo_robustness
threshold: partial_r2_institutional_channels >= 0.40  AND partial_r2_institutional_channels > partial_r2_gini_alone  AND loo_robust (no single country swings sign of primary channel)

Method

Template
panel_fe
Clustering
country
Sample
20 countries · 1990 – 2020
Evidence type
associational

Cross-sectional regression (n ~ 20 countries, one mobility point per country); no panel dimension. Specification: mobility = b0 + b1*edu_inequality + b2*residential_segregation + b3*housing_affordability + b4*controls + epsilon Given small n, report bootstrap SEs (1000 replications), partial-R2 decomposition, and robustness via Bayesian linear regression with weakly informative priors (Horseshoe on coefficients). Leave-one- out robustness to check Nordic-cluster and US outlier sensitivity. template=panel_fe slot used for the regression mechanics; no fixed effects (cross-section).

Data

VariableSourceTransform
intergenerational_earnings_elasticity
outcome
owid:intergenerational-earnings-elasticitytier 2
level
bottom_to_top_quintile_transition_probability
outcome
owid:share-of-children-in-the-bottom-quintile-who-make-it-to-the-top-quintiletier 2
level
education_spending_inequality
channel
oecd:OECD.EDU.IMEPtier 2
coefficient_of_variation
residential_segregation_by_income
channel
oecd:OECD.ELS.HDtier 2
level
price_to_income_ratio_tier1_cities
channel
bis:WS_SPPtier 2
ratio_to_median_income
gdp_per_capita_ppp
control
world_bank_wdi:NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.KDtier 2
log
disposable_income_gini
control
world_bank_wdi:SI.POV.GINItier 2
level
government_effectiveness
control
wgi:GOV_WGI_GE.ESTtier 4
level
tertiary_attainment_rate
control
world_bank_wdi:SE.TER.CUAT.BA.ZStier 2
level

● ready  · ● pending  · ● reconstruct-needed

Detailed result card

Result card — intergenerational_mobility_cross_country

Verdict: INCONCLUSIVE_DATA_PENDING — no outcome or no treatment variable in spec

Pre-registration

  • Claim: Cross-country variation in intergenerational income mobility (commonly measured as the rank-rank slope or intergenerational income elasticity) across OECD countries is substantially explained by institutional determinants — education-system equality of provision, residential segregation, and housing affordability — rather than by the aggregate redistribution level. Specifically: countries with more equal public education spending across school districts, lower residential income segregation, and more affordable housing in high-opportunity regions should show higher mobility after controlling for GDP per capita, the level of disposable-income Gini, and institutional quality. The claim aligns with the Chetty-Hendren-Kline-Saez opportunity-atlas finding that mobility is generated by place-based mechanisms more than by transfer-based redistribution, and generalises it cross-country.
  • Falsification rule: Not supported if the three institutional channels (education inequality, residential segregation, housing affordability) jointly account for less than 40 percent of R-squared in the cross-country mobility regression after controlling for GDP per capita, Gini, and government effectiveness. Separately, if disposable-income Gini alone (controlling for nothing else) explains more variation than the three institutional channels combined, the "institutional determinants more than redistribution level" framing is weakened and the Piketty-style "compressed income distributions mechanically produce mobility" reading earns standing. Given n ~ 20 and the resulting statistical power limits, robust findings require the institutional-channel result to survive leave-one-out robustness (no single country swings the conclusion).
  • Falsification test: partial_r2_channels_vs_gini_plus_loo_robustness

Estimate

  • Error: no outcome or no treatment variable in spec

Variables resolved

  • owid:intergenerational-earnings-elasticity → intergenerational_earnings_elasticity (outcome, publisher=owid, n=12)
  • oecd:OECD.EDU.IMEP,DSD_EAG_FIN@DF_FIN_RESOURCES,1.0 → education_spending_inequality (decomposition_channels, publisher=oecd, n=36)
  • oecd:OECD.ELS.HD,DSD_HH_DASH@DF_HSG_INEQ,1.0 → residential_segregation_by_income (decomposition_channels, publisher=oecd, n=1039)
  • bis:WS_SPP → price_to_income_ratio_tier1_cities (decomposition_channels, publisher=bis, n=2272)
  • world_bank_wdi:NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.KD → gdp_per_capita_ppp (controls, publisher=world_bank_wdi, n=8325)
  • world_bank_wdi:SI.POV.GINI → disposable_income_gini (controls, publisher=world_bank_wdi, n=2430)
  • wgi:GOV_WGI_GE.EST → government_effectiveness (controls, publisher=wgi, n=5168)
  • world_bank_wdi:SE.TER.CUAT.BA.ZS → tertiary_attainment_rate (controls, publisher=world_bank_wdi, n=1403)

Variables missing data

  • owid:share-of-children-in-the-bottom-quintile-who-make-it-to-the-top-quintile (outcome, name=bottom_to_top_quintile_transition_probability) — vintage not on disk

Generated by scripts/run_panel_fe.py at 2026-06-29T17:48:34+00:00

Strongest opposing argument

Every hypothesis ships with its charitable opposing argument. The framework earns credibility by handling objections at their strongest, not weakest.

Notes

Data-gated on native OECD mobility fetcher (pending OECD SDD SOC extension), native Chetty opportunity-atlas fetcher (US-specific, not cross-country), and OECD Affordable Housing Database extension. v1 routes through OWID mirrors of Corak-OECD measures; v2 upgrade on native fetcher availability. Sample size limit means this is a low-power test; the primary value is combined with the other distribution-track hypotheses as a triangulation rather than a stand-alone finding. 2026-05-04 local data repair audit found no on-disk mobility outcome vintage and no on-disk OECD Education-at-a-Glance subnational spending dispersion or OECD Affordable Housing income-segregation vintage. Narrow single-series fetch attempts for the listed OWID mobility slugs returned 404 and the listed OECD channel dataflows returned 403 through the current fetcher, so GDP per capita or poverty-headcount WDI series must not be substituted for the preregistered mobility outcomes.

Authored framework. Read the transparency note.