Studies show that the gain from China's remarkable growth of the past 35 years has not been evenly shared, especially through the intergenerational transmission of income. To address this concern, we use data from China Health and Nutrition Survey and find the intergenerational income elasticity to be 0.466 in 2011, which suggests that sons’ incomes are affected by their fathers’ economic statuses to a large extent. A cross-country comparison indicates that the degree of generational income mobility in China is lower than that in many developed nations. Meanwhile, by investigating possible transmission channels, we find that the fathers’ investments in the sons’ education and occupation play substantial roles in intergenerational transmission of income. The results not only demonstrate the trends in intergenerational income mobility in China, but also identify the most likely transmission channels, which is of great importance to improving social equality.

This paper analyses the relationship between informal institutions measured by social trust and the provision of private credit. Research on the trust–finance relationship abounds, although most of it is confined to the micro-level, with far fewer contributions from a wide, cross-country perspective. Considering a sample of 119 economies in the period 1993–2015, results suggest that social trust is an important determinant of private credit, and that its effects are transmitted indirectly via some particular aspects of the quality of economic-judicial institutions. In addition, and contrary to previous findings in related areas, substitutive effects for informal and formal institutions are not found. Therefore, informal institutions can improve the quality of the certain types of formal institutions but they are, per se, unable to replace them in the provision of credit. Accordingly, a solid economic-judicial system becomes essential to guarantee credit transactions.

The mechanisms by which the world economic crisis has been transmitted from developed to developing economies are conditioned by domestic factors that may attenuate or accentuate external economic shocks and their adverse social effects. Cuba is a special case: it is an open economy and hence vulnerable to trade-growth transmission mechanisms, but at the same time, it is a socialist economy with universal social services. This article reviews the literature, summarises Cuba's domestic socio-economic strengths and weaknesses prior to the crisis, evaluates the effects of the crisis on the macro-economic and social services indicators, assesses the government response and suggests alternative socio-economic policies.