Intergenerational Mobility of Education in Europe: Geographical Patterns, Cohort-Linked Measures, and the Innovation Nexus

We estimate intergenerational mobility of education for people born 1940-1999 at the subnational level for 40 European countries. The result is a panel of mobility indices for 105 mesoregions (NUTS1), and 215 microregions (NUTS2). We use these indices to make three contributions. First, we describe the geography of intergenerational mobility in Europe. Second, adapting a novel weighting procedure based on cohorts’ relative economic contribution, we transform cohort-linked measures into annual measures of intergenerational mobility for each region. Third, we investigate the relationship between intergenerational mobility and innovation, and find robust evidence that higher mobility is associated with increased innovation.

McNamara, Sarah, Guido Neidhöfer and Patrick Lehnert (2024), Intergenerational Mobility of Education in Europe: Geographical Patterns, Cohort-Linked Measures, and the Innovation Nexus, ZEW Discussion Paper No. 24-004, Mannheim.