Abstract: By making use of the data from CHIPS, this paper constructs the indexes of income mobility and income inequality of the residents in 66 cities so as to conduct an empirical study of the relationship between income mobility and economic growth with reference to the data from the urban statistical yearbooks and regional statistical yearbooks over the years. It is found through the regression that higher income mobility has significant positive impacts on economic growth, but these effects will fade away when the income distribution becomes more unequal within the regions. Besides, these effects may last for a long time, namely, the higher income mobility within one period will still keep its role to promote the economic growth in the next period. However, in the regions with a higher degree of income inequality, this effect is relatively weak. The implication of the policy is that to create fair opportunities and promote social mobility is not only a measure to promote social equality but also a way to promote economic growth. In addition, when dealing with the issue of income distribution, both dynamic fairness (income mobility) and static fairness (income inequality) are of great significance.

Key words: income mobility; economic growth; income inequality; difference GMM