Mobility and Modality Trends in US State Personal Income

We examine the mobility and modality trends in US state per capita personal income (and its components) during the 1929-1999 period. We find strong evidence of convergence for states, but that the tendency towards convergence (and the associated mobility within the distribution) varies during the period and especially for the 1980s. Our analysis of convergence by income component suggests that transfer income contributes more to the observed convergence than does asset income. We also note that distributional mobility need not be accompanied by high rank mobility and find that trends toward convergence in the US have tended to preserve rank ordering. Cet article cherche a examiner les tendances de mobilite et de modalitequant aux revenus personnels par tete (et a ses composants) aux Etats-Unis pendant la periode qui va de 1929 a1999. Il s'avere de fortes preuves d' une convergence entre Etats qui varie au cours de la periode etudiee (et qui va de pair avec une variation de la mobilite associee au sein de ...