CAN HOUSEHOLDS AND WELFARE STATES MITIGATE RISING EARNINGS INSTABILITY?

We compare the evolution of earnings instability in Germany and the United Kingdom, two countries which stand for different types of welfare states. Deploying data from the German Socio‐Economic Panel (SOEP) and the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS), we estimate permanent and transitory variances of male income over the period 1984–2009 and 1991–2006, respectively. Studies in this literature generally use individual labor earnings. To uncover the role of welfare state and households in smoothening earnings shocks, we compute different income concepts ranging from gross earnings to net equivalent household income. We find evidence that the overall inequality of earnings in Germany and the United Kingdom has been rising throughout the period due to both higher permanent earnings inequality and higher earnings volatility. However, taking institutions of the welfare state and risk‐sharing households into account, we find that the volatility of net household income has remained fairly stable. Furthermore, redistribution and risk insurance provided by the welfare state is more pronounced in Germany than in the United Kingdom.     

HOW INCOME INEQUALITY CHANGED IN GERMANY FOLLOWING REUNIFICATION: AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS USING DECOMPOSABLE INEQUALITY MEASURES

This paper analyzes how inequality in Before and After Government income has changed in Germany since reunification using the 1990 through 1992 waves of the German Socio-Economic Panel. A Theil decomposable inequality index is used to measure inequality in Germany and in its eastern and western states. Massive public transfers from west to east have narrowed the east-west income gap, substantially offset the rise in income inequality from private sources, and lowered overall inequality in the western states. The net result of this policy has been a drop in After Government income inequality in Germany between 1990 and 1992.     

INCOME INEQUALITY IN GERMANY DURING THE 1980s AND 1990s

The paper estimates a variety of inequality measures for three sub-samples of the German population using cross-sectional data on equivalent income from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP). The sub-populations under consideration are residents of West Germany including foreigners for the years 1984 to 1996, residents of East Germany for the years 1990 to 1996 and a comprehensive German population for the years 1990 to 1996. Bootstrap methods are applied to test whether changes in inequality are statistically significant. In order to account for panel attrition and over-sampling, sample weights are incorporated into the estimation procedure. The empirical results confirm the relative stability of the West German income distribution. While income inequality in West Germany has generally not altered in an economically relevant way over the period 1985 to 1996, inequality in East Germany has increased after reunification. Despite this increase, inequality remains substantially higher in the western part of the country. Convergence of eastern mean income to the western level generally overcompensated the rise in inequality in East Germany, so that the level of inequality in unified Germany is lower in 1996 than in 1990.     

Germany's Economic Unification: An Assessment after Ten Years

A political miracle occurred when Germany was reunited, and at first glance an economic miracle has followed. Real incomes in the eastern area have now reached the western level, and investment per capita has been much higher than in the west. However, every third deutschmark spent in the east has been coming from the west, investment in equipment has fallen below the west German per capita level, and convergence seems to have come to a halt at an overall labor productivity of only 59% of west Germany. Excessively high wages coupled with investment incentives that made the cost of capital negative rank high among the possible explanations. This paper describes reforms of the labor market that could help to make convergence continue.     

REASONS FOR PREFERRING NET TO GROSS FIGURES OF INCOME AND PRODUCT (AND VICE VERSA)

For the first time, a systematic discussion is presented of the choice between gross and net national accounting figures of value added, product and income for alternative purposes. Some traditional arguments for preferring gross to net figures are challenged and several historical reasons are given for the present popularity of gross figures. The quantitative importance of the issue (“what does it matter in practice?”) is also assessed.     

劳动力流动与收入收敛--一个改进的新古典增长模型及对中国的启示

文章将劳动力的流动性引进新古典增长模型,对于一个拥有一定资本密度的小型开放经济体而言,当它低于稳态时,劳动力的迁出会加快收入收敛的速度,但同时会对整体资本投资产生抑制作用;在收入水平相对较低时,这种抑制作用会超过其正面作用,从而劳动力流动会减缓收入收敛的速度;但从长期来看,随着劳动力流动性的提高,正面作用最终会占据主导地位,从而劳动力的无限自由流动会最终导致收入收敛于稳态.     

A COMPARISON BETWEEN ACTUAL DISTRIBUTIONS OF ANNUAL AND LIFETIME INCOME: SWEDEN 1951–89

This paper uses register data on tax assessed income from 1951 to 1989 for a representative sample of Swedish men in order to compare the distributions of annual income and "lifetime" income. It is found that the dispersion of lifetime income is around 35 to 40 percent lower than typical cross-sections of annual income. It is income up to around 30 years of age that mainly explains this discrepancy in the magnitude of dispersions. From the age of 30 until 65 years the correlations between annual and lifetime income are quite high and the dispersion of annual income is not very much higher than the dispersion of lifetime income. An analysis of the evolution of income mobility shows that there is a slight tendency to rising mobility over time. This finding implies that the common approach to study the development of income distribution by using only annual income can be misleading.     

劳动者技能、劳动力流动与收入再分配

二元经济下劳动力的流动和收入再分配是经济学界长期关注的焦点问题之一.本文从标准的刘易斯模型所体现的经济及制度环境入手建立模型,分析劳动者技能、劳动力流动与收入再分配三者之间的关系,对照中国当前实际指明问题所在并提供相应的对策建议,为我国当前及今后相当长时期妥善处理劳动力流动及再分配问题提供了参考.     

Multidimensional Inequality Across Three Developed Countries

This paper produces comparable estimates of multidimensional inequality for the U.S., Germany, and Australia. Two alternative approaches with differing interpretations are employed. The first method projects all facets of welfare onto a single variable which is then analyzed using standard univariate techniques. The second approach establishes equivalent‐income distributions that would lead to an equalization of welfare, such that the difference between this counterfactual and the true income distribution can be measured. This difference is then interpreted as the degree of income redistribution required to offset welfare inequality. Using data on permanent incomes, health scores, years of education, and leisure times, we observe much higher levels of inequality in the U.S. than in Germany or Australia. Our results are highly statistically significant and hold over a large variety of weighting specifications.     

SOCIAL SECURITY AND LABOR SUPPLY INCENTIVES

Many provisions of the Social Security program distort an individual's labor supply incentives. In particular, the payroll tax, the earnings test, the offsetting actuarial adjustment, and the dependence of the size of future benefits on the level of current earnings all affect the net return to extra work. The purpose of this paper is to estimate the size of the net tax rate on labor income in a variety of circumstances, taking into account all these provisions, as well as the personal income tax. We find that the Social Security Program on net in the past has provided a large subsidy to labor supply, which for many people effectively offset the personal income tax. This subsidy rate, however, has been declining steadily over time     

Why Are Women Delaying Motherhood in Germany?

Abstract

German fertility trends show that the average age at which women have their first child has increased in recent decades. Moreover, researchers have argued that delayed maternity is an important factor in reduced fertility. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), this paper contributes to the debate about maternity timing and reduced fertility in Germany by analyzing some of the factors determining the delay of motherhood. The results suggest that German women who have accumulated more years of education and longer work experience at the time of marriage delay motherhood more. On the other hand, women with higher labor income and a higher contribution to household income delay motherhood less. The results confirm that women consolidate their careers before motherhood in order to reduce career costs. Therefore, if fertility rates are to be increased in Germany further policies that aim to combine women's careers and motherhood need to be developed.     

ASSESSING THE IMPACTS OF LABOR MARKET AND DETERRENCE VARIABLES ON CRIME RATES IN MEXICO

Many studies examine the relationship between crime rates and various economic and/or sociodemographic variables in high income countries, but similar efforts for middle and low income countries are less common. Utilizing an 8‐year panel data sample for all 32 states in Mexico, this study assesses the impact of Mexican labor market and deterrence variables on various Mexican crime rates. The principal results indicate that: (1) State gross domestic product (GDP) per capita has ambiguous effect on crime rates under different conditions. Both wages and unemployment rates are negatively linked with crime rates. (2) Although the Mexican judicial and public security systems are widely believed to be ineffective, increased federal police forces and incarceration rates are associated with lower crime rates, but higher public security expenditure per capita is associated with higher crime rates. (3) The impacts from labor market and deterrence variables presented in (1) and (2) continue to hold under the Fox administration as well as for non‐border states. Their respective impacts diminish, however, under the Calderon administration as well as for border states because of the small number of observations. Overall, the results indicate that increasing average wages, federal police forces, and incarceration rates would have significant impacts on reducing crime rates in Mexican states. (JEL O54, K42)     

Transition from unemployment benefits to social assistance in seven European OECD countries

The topic of this paper is the transition from unemployment benefit schemes to social assistance in seven European OECD countries. The unemployment benefit schemes are formally quite different in the seven countries. Most are mandatory but Denmark and Sweden have voluntary unemployment insurance and Finland has a mandatory basic scheme with a voluntary income related component on top of that. Self employed people can join the U.B. schemes in the 3 Scandinavian countries. All the U.B. schemes have working or contribution conditions to be met by the members in order to obtain eligibility for benefits. These conditions are relatively tight in the Netherlands, France and Sweden and relatively easy in Denmark and Great Britain with Germany and Finland in between (based on rules in 1994–95). Recent developments in several countries have been to tighten the access conditions to the U.B. schemes and from 1997 Denmark will be ‘on line’ with Germany. The Netherlands have tightened the access criteria very significantly in 1995. There is a considerable variation as far as the duration of the unemployment benefit period is concerned. Sweden has a benefit period in fact without effective time limitations. The Danish benefit period is also very long, 7 years now being reduced to 5 years. 5 years is also the maximum duration in the Netherlands and in France, but only after many years of work and after a relatively high age has been reached. The maximum period in Germany, 22/3 years, also requires a long work history and a relatively high age. Finland and Great Britain have uniform benefit period (just as in Denmark and Sweden), in Finland it is appr. 2 years (longer for elderly unemployed just as in Sweden and Denmark) and in Great Britain it was 1 year but from October 1996 it was reduced to 1/2 year. The differences in the duration of the benefit periods between the seven countries are very considerable. As already mentioned, there has been a tendency to reduce the benefit period in several countries. Such a change is also being considered for the ‘never ending’ benefit period in the Swedish U.B. scheme. The benefit formula is purely flat rate in Great Britain and income related in the other countries. There is a maximum benefit level in 5 of these countries, but not in Finland, where the compensation is stepwise decreasing with increasing income. In the 5 countries with income related benefits and a maximum benefit level, this maximum level is reached at a relatively low income in Denmark (2/3 APW income) and Sweden (close to APW income) and at a relatively high income in the Netherlands (appr. 1.5 APW income) and Germany (appr. 1.7 APW income) and at a very high income level in France. France is the only country among the 7, where the benefits after an initial period are being reduced regularly (every 4 months) in the benefit period down to a minimum level. Sweden and Germany have reduced the benefit levels in recent years. Denmark has the highest gross compensation percentage, 90, in relation to lost income, but it is only effective over a relatively narrow income interval, from approx. 133,000 DKK to 162,000 DKK (1996), ‘between’ the min. and max. U.B. rates. According to the 3 institutional criteria applied here, access to the schemes, duration of the benefit period and the type of benefit formula, the U.B. schemes of the seven countries studied are very different. The exit scheme from U.B is social assistance in most of the countries, but not in Germany, where it is possible to continue in a scheme with lower compensation but still income related. For Sweden it is hardly meaningful to speak of an ‘exit scheme’ when the U.B. insurance is without effective time limitations. The exit schemes in the other countries are all characterized by having flat rate benefits. All the exit schemes are means tested and this is a crucial difference to the U.B. schemes, and they are without time limitations. Means testing and no effective time limitations are usual characteristics for social assistance and social assistance like schemes. In all the countries, except in Denmark and Sweden, there is ‘topping-up’ from social assistance to a guaranteed minimum level disregarding the income sources. In the two Scandinavian countries mentioned, a ‘social event’, i.e. illness or unemployment, is required in order to be eligible for social assistance benefits. Net replacement rates are used to illustrate the levels of compensation within the U.B. and the S.A. schemes, to identify possible incentives problems, and to illustrate the economic implications of the transition from U.B. to S.A. schemes. The net replacement rates presented are calculated by using the ‘disposable income after net housing costs’ income concept. The calculations include several family types, singles and couples with and without children and for the couples with one or two incomes. A general result but with some modifications, cf. the following, could be that the U.B. based replacement rates usually are higher than the S.A. based, but that the difference is minor when the U.B. scheme is flat rate or income related with a maximum benefit level being reached at a relatively low income, for Great Britain there are in several cases no difference at all. The ‘topping-up’ has the implication that the U.B. and S.A. based replacement rates are often identical at the lower end of the income scale. The very high S.A. based replacement rates (well over 100 per cent) often seen for Denmark and Sweden at low income levels do not necessarily imply, that social assistance in those two countries is more generous than in the other countries, it is very much an effect of not having more or less automatic ‘topping-up’ to a guaranteed minimum income level when earned income is low. The single parent family type seems to have incentives problems at relatively low income levels in most of the countries, especially when receiving U.B., she may temporarily be caught in the ‘unemployment trap’. The one earner couple with children may also be exposed to the ‘unemployment trap’ but on a more permanent basis. The S.A. based replacement rates for this family type are extraordinarily high (and higher than the U.B. based) in Denmark and Sweden, where this family type, however, is very rare. For the two earner family (where one of the spouses always has earned income) the means testing of S.A. makes an impact on the S.A. based net replacement rates, they are in most cases substantially lower than the U.B. based. The results of the net replacement calculations indicate no or only minor economic implications by a transition from U.B. to S.A. in the lower end of the income scale while the effect in most cases will be more substantial in the higher end of the income scale. This is not always the case in Sweden and Denmark where S.A. for some family types are preferable to U.B. and where the difference in other cases may be so small, that it implies incentives problems for joining the voluntary U.B. scheme. The calculation of ‘long term’ (5 years) net replacement rates for families at a low income level (the point in the income distribution where only 5 per cent have lower income) and only including one earner families, reveals that either the long benefit period in the U.B. scheme (Sweden and Denmark) or ‘topping-up’ (Germany, the Netherlands and Great Britain) generate ‘constant’ net replacement rates, and quite high ones, at low income levels. Only in France and to some extent in Finland will there be a decrease in net replacement rates over time. Most of the differences concerning the duration of unemployment benefit periods and to some extend the benefit formulas have no effect on the long term net replacement rates. At higher income levels the time limitations in the U.B. schemes will be visible again, except in Great Britain where the U.B. and S.A. benefits are almost identical. It is not possible to point out a ‘worst’ country with respect to ‘incentives’ problems, but the Danish, and to some degree also the Swedish, U.B. schemes with their high net replacement rates at lower income levels and long duration periods ‘stand’ out in many cases, and the S.A. schemes in those two countries may also contribute to permanent ‘unemployment traps’ as well as lack of incentives to join the voluntary insurance schemes. The two Scandinavian countries are, however, not alone with ‘incentives problems’. The section on long term net replacement rates showed that for low income levels the replacement rates were high and constant in most countries. This result is often due to ‘topping-up’ to a guaranteed minimum standard.     

乡村公路建设、农业劳动生产率与城乡收入差距*——基于空间杜宾模型的实证分析

本文在两部门一般均衡模型中引入乡村公路建设，从理论上说明了乡村公路建设、农业劳动生产率及城乡收入差距之间的关系。本文利用我国2002—2018年省际面板数据，构建空间计量模型和中介效应模型，实证检验了乡村公路建设对城乡收入差距的影响及内部机制。研究发现，乡村三级、四级公路建设显著缩小了区域城乡收入差距，同时乡村二级公路建设对附近地区产生了空间溢出效应，即促进了周边区域城乡收入差距缩小。机制分析发现，乡村公路建设通过提高技术效率来提升农业劳动生产率，以实现城乡收入差距缩小。此外，乡村公路建设对不同地区影响具有异质性，其显著降低了东部地区城乡收入差距，但在西部地区却产生了虹吸效应，从而扩大了当地城乡收入差距。     

中国城镇个人收入流动性研究

利用中国社会科学院经济研究所收入分配课题组1995年和2002年两次城镇居民住户调查数据,本文对城镇个人收入的流动性进行了经验分析,发现在1998—2002年间中国城镇个人的收入流动性比1991—1995年间显著下降。这种下降是全局性的,即不同特征人群的收入流动性都呈现出同步下降的趋势。1991—1995年间出现的较高的收入流动性,其结果是低文化程度者、退休人员和集体企业职工等人群迅速沉入收入分布的底层,而金融业人员、机关事业单位人员和管理人员等人群迅速升至收入分布的顶层。而1998—2002年期间,收入流动性的降低使得收入阶层的分化趋于稳定化。     

Income Inequality and Income Mobility in the Scandinavian Countries Compared to the United States

This paper compares income inequality and income mobility in the Scandinavian countries and the United States during 1980–90. The results suggest that inequality is greater in the United States than in the Scandinavian countries and that this inequality ranking of countries remains unchanged when the accounting period of income is extended from one to eleven years. The pattern of mobility turns out to be remarkably similar, in the sense that the proportionate reduction in inequality from extending the accounting period of income is much the same. But we do find evidence of greater dispersion of first differences of relative earnings and income in the United States. Relative income changes are associated with changes in labor market and marital status in all four countries, but the magnitude of such changes are largest in the United States.     

Total factor productivity convergence in German states since reunification: Evidence and explanations

A quarter-century after reunification, labor productivity in the states of eastern Germany continues to lag systematically behind the West. Persistent gaps in total factor productivity (TFP) are the proximate cause; conventional and capital-free measurements confirm a sharp slowdown in TFP growth after 1995. Strikingly, eastern capital intensity, especially in industry, exceeds values in the West, casting doubt on the embodied technology hypothesis. TFP growth is negatively associated with rates of investment expenditures. The stubborn East-West TFP gap is best explained by low concentration of managers, low startup intensity and the distribution of firm size in the East rather than R&D activities.     

Spain is different: Falling trends of inequality

In this article we characterize the evolution of inequality in hourly wages, hours of work, labor earnings, household disposable income and household consumption for Spain between 1985 and 2000. We look at both the Encuesta Continua de Presupuestos Familiares and the European Household Community Panel. Our analysis shows that inequality in individual net labor earnings and household net disposable income has decreased substantially. The decreases in the tertiary education premium and in the unemployment rate have been key ingredients to understand this falling trend. Public transfers have played a crucial role in smoothing out the inequality arising in the labor market, but instead the Spanish family does not seem to have been an important insurance mechanism. Regarding household consumption, inequality has fallen much less than inequality in household net disposable income, with the decrease mostly concentrated in the second half of the eighties. This suggests that the reduction in income inequality has affected the sources of permanent differences between households only during the second half of the eighties. Our estimates of the earnings process for the period are consistent with this view.     

我国高技术产业资本生产率地区收敛性分析

利用收敛性理论,对1995-2004年我国不同区域之间的高技术产业资本生产率进行了收敛性分析.结果发现全国和东部地区的高技术产业资本生产率在1995-2004年间趋向于自身的稳态,同时,中西部地区与东部地区高技术产业资本生产率的差距逐步缩小.     

区域对外贸易与制造业产业结构间关系的实证研究——基于省级制造业行业动态面板数据

利用2000—2010年我国省级制造业行业动态面板数据,运用系统广义矩估计方法,实证研究了我国东、中和西部地区的出口和进口对制造业产业结构的影响。研究结果显示:东部地区的出口与资源密集型行业和劳动密集型行业的"行业产值与制造业总产值的比值"存在负相关关系,与资本密集型行业和资本技术密集型行业的"行业产值与制造业总产值的比值"存在正相关关系;东部地区的出口促进了制造业产业结构的升级,中、西部地区的情况与之相反;三大区域的进口均促进了制造业产业结构的升级;促进三大区域制造业产业结构升级的主要因素是国内投资和技术进步;东部地区的FDI、居民收入水平和金融发展水平促进了其制造业产业结构的升级,而中、西部地区的FDI没有促进其制造业产业结构的升级,中、西部地区的居民收入水平和金融发展水平对制造业产业结构升级的促进效果不明显。