Intergenerational mobility and voting in the presidential election: Evidence from US counties

According to conventional knowledge, higher intergenerational mobility is related to lower preferences for redistribution and, thus, lower support for liberal (i.e. left-wing) political parties. While most of previous studies use survey responses to elicit political preferences, I use county-level statistics of intergenerational mobility and voting patterns to analyze the link between the two. I find that, even after controlling for average income, income inequality, and other characteristics of counties, the vote share for the Democratic candidate in the 2008 presidential election is significantly lower in counties with higher intergenerational mobility.(c) 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.