Inter-generational Persistence in the Ownership of Real Assets: Evidence from Latin America

We explore inter-generational mobility in assets ownership for Latin America. Our findings confirm the strong correlation between parents and offspring ownership, even after controlling for education and labor outcomes. Second, we provide evidence pointing to the role of inheritances, assortative mating, health shocks, lack of access to credit, and the intergenerational transmission of personality traits, as potential mechanisms behind the high persistence. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper to estimate inter-generational persistence in asset ownership and the mechanisms behind this phenomenon for Latin America, a highly unequal region.