There are certainly many other ways of measuring intergenerational mobility
that focus attention upon particular aspects of the process. The generational
elasticity, for example, offers an overall average measure of the degree of mobility
without saying anything about the direction of change. The cross-country
differences illustrated in the Great Gatsby Curve could reflect differences in the
degree of upward mobility for those born to low income fathers, or differences in
the stickiness of inter-generational status for those born to top income parents.
Figures 2 and 3 contrast, by way of illustration, mobility in the United States
and Canada for sons raised by fathers with incomes in the top 10 percent, and
for those raised by fathers in the bottom 10 percent. In Corak (2010), I argue
that the comparison of these two countries is particularly apt in part because
of similarities in the underlying data used, but also because they share a good
many other things in common, an issue to which I return below.