Intergenerational Mobility through the Lens of Subjective Well-Being

Talk by Vladimir Gimpelson (University of Wisconsin-Madison and IZA) as part of the Research Seminar Series of the IOS Economics Department.

Do people in the post-socialist countries have higher livings standards compared to their parents? According to the objective data, they definitely are. But do they see the change in the same way as the statistics does? Do they expect a better future for their children compared to what they have today? How does evaluation of the recent change interact with expectations for the future? Comparing generations on these issues equals studying intergenerational change. This set of questions relates to the long-term implications of the post-socialist transition for human capital accumulation and utilization, as well as for evolution of the living standards. Political attitudes towards democracy and market economy are also not neutral to these questions. I use questions from the Life in Transition Survey (LiTS) asking whether respondents have done better than their parents and whether children will have a better life than the current generation. The LiTS data cover all 29 post-socialist countries and span over 15 years. I apply simple econometric tools for exploring major trends and inter-group and cross-country variation.