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Equality of Opportunity

Click here for the Equality of Opportunity Project website hosted by Harvard (hat tip: Christopher Coyle). This project looks at inter-generational mobility in the United States. Why? Because there is a fear that such mobility in the U.S. (the land of opportunity) is lower than in many developed countries. A summary of the project findings are here and NY Times coverage is here. Two interesting findings are that family structure and religion are some of the strongest predictors of upward social mobility. They also find that tax policies do little to improve mobility.

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Lighter colors represent areas where children from low-income families are more likely to move up in the income distribution.  Source: Equality of Opportunity Project 

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