| Hello, *|NOME|* Although "social mobility" is a broad concept with many ramifications, the operationalization of this concept requires the characterization of changes in relevant dimensions in the lives of individuals. One of the main dimensions has to do with the income or wealth of individuals. Let us suppose that it were possible, at a given time, to rank all the individuals of a society in descending order of wealth, from the richest to the poorest. A question that naturally arises is: how will these individuals appear on the horizon a few years into the future? Will they be in exactly the same position of the ranking? Will there have been a change in relative positions? When we analyze issues of this nature, we are dealing with mobility within the same generation, and for this very reason, we refer to it as intragenerational mobility. Considering the various generations of this society, other questions are possible. For example, what will the income or wealth of the second generation be, compared to the first? What will the relative position of the second generation be, when compared to the previous one? In this case, we are dealing with intergenerational mobility. The first question concerns absolute intergenerational mobility, which measures the percentage of people in a generation who have income or wealth superior to that of their parents. The second concerns ranking mobility (or position), measuring whether the generation of children is in a higher relative position to that of their parents. Both concepts are important and respond to different questions. Several factors influence transitions of income and wealth throughout life – and, therefore, social mobility – but it is plausible that these factors have different weights depending on the position in the social pyramid in which the individual is. Access to education, health, sanitation, and job opportunities are among the most relevant for the poorest. Considering the upper end of the pyramid, i.e. the richest portion of the society, it is plausible that social mobility is explained to a greater degree by dynamism of the business environment, by the degree of freedom of individuals and the institutional characteristics that encourage or discourage entrepreneurship. In the more dynamic and economically and socially open economies, individuals from middle segments have a greater possibility of ascension. The same cannot be said for societies with rules that make it rigid, with no leeway for mobility. Brazil knows relatively little about the social mobility of its wealthier members of society. The comparison between France and the United States, reported in the book "Skin in the Game" by statistician Nassim Taleb (in contrast to French economist Thomas Piketty and his book "Capital in the Twenty-First Century"), is illustrative of the huge differences in mobility in this portion and tends to highlight less explored relationships between inequality and social mobility. For example, according to Taleb, "only 10 percent of the 500 richest families in the U.S. were in that position 30 years earlier." In France, more than 60% of that same list were in that position. In summary, Taleb indicates that the preponderance of heirs in France's economic pyramid is much more significant than that observed in the U.S. In order to contribute to the understanding of this dynamic in the Brazilian case, IMDS is conducting a study on mobility and concentration of income among the richest families in the country. Using data from Forbes, the study proposes to characterize relative changes of position at the top of the pyramid in recent years and identify possible differences between Brazil and other countries such as China, India, and the United States. Soon these results will be presented to you.
Until the next “Letter from IMDS”! Paulo Tafner CEO | 
