Events

Professor Sebastian Findeisen
Professor
Chair of Economic Policy University of Konstanz

We construct a new administrative dataset linking children to parents in German labor market data. We analyze representativeness and document generational persistence, showing substantial heterogeneity across local labor markets. Using a mover-exposure design, our model reveals that the effect of growing up in a better place is mediated by workplaces. Access to better firms caused by moves in childhood explains around 40% of the total earnings increases associated with such moves. Workplaces with higher wage premia and larger firms primarily hire workers from high-income backgrounds. However, despite the limited access these high-wage firms offer to low-income children, they provide the best opportunities for successful upward mobility, because the probability of reaching the top income tercile is so high conditional on landing a job. Between-industry differences in income segregation across firms are more important than within-industry differences.