It is very difficult to measure changes in economic and social mobility across generations and to make comparisons across societies. Research by Maia Guell, Jose V. Rodriguez Mora and Chris Telmer finds that surnames can provide valuable insights into the importance of family background for people's outcomes in later life.

The more a surname tells us about the wellbeing of an individual, the less intergenerational mobility there is in that society. For example, in the UK 50 years ago, just using surnames would allow you to predict that Windsors would be wealthy half a century hence. But you would have been wrong to predict the wealth of the Rooneys or the Beckhams using surnames alone.

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February 2008     Paper Number CEPCP246

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