Meritocracy and inherited advantage in the United States

Citation

Comerford D, Rodríguez Mora JV & Watts MJ (2026) Meritocracy and inherited advantage in the United States. Regional Studies, 60 (1), Art. No.: 2634153. https://doi.org/10.1080/00343404.2026.2634153

Abstract
We fit a model to US regional data on income, inequality and intergenerational mobility to derive ‘meritocracy’ and ‘advantage’: high meritocracy implies local labour markets reward human capital; high advantage implies they reward class background. We then characterise how these indices correlate with observable characteristics of regions, finding intuitive results which correlate with common understanding of these terms. Finally, we show there is information in the model: our indices provide extra explanatory power for voting behaviour in the United States. We conclude that using our model to interpret the data at the regional level reveals new insights into regional characteristics.

Keywords
Meritocracy and inherited advantage, intergenerational mobility and inequality, regional labour market dynamics

Journal
Regional Studies: Volume 60, Issue 1

• Meritocracy and inherited advantage in the United States