Evening Must-Read: Mark Thoma: Mobility Roundup

Mark Thoma: Economist’s View: Income Mobility: “The topic of the day seems to be the [Chetty et al.] new study on income mobility:

• [David Leonhardt:] Upward Mobility Has Not Declined
• Jared Bernstein: Stable Income Mobility: Not a Muddle At All
• Dean Baker: [Did We Need a Landmark Study to Tell Us Mobility Didn’t Decrease Between 1990 and 2007?]9http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/did-we-need-a-landmark-study-to-tell-us-mobility-didnt-decrease-for-people-entering-the-labor-market-between-1990-and-2007)
• Tyler Cowen: Upward mobility in the United States is not declining as many citizens think
• Matthew Yglesias: What If Social Mobility Is Never High Anywhere?
• Kevin Drum: Income Mobility in the US is Terrible, But at Least It’s Not Getting Worse
• Heather Boushey: Here’s to wishing you the best of luck in the birth lottery—you’re going to need it

And Mark comments:

My take is similar to Kevin Drum’s, who manages to separate the level of mobility (very low) to the rate of change (one study, the latest, says mobility is unchanged)…. [And Heather’s] response emphasizes the geographic variation–where you are born appears to matter quite a bit.