What Lies Behind Income Mobility? Reranking and Distributional Change in Belgium, Western Germany and the USA

The paper presents a decomposition of income mobility indices into two basic sources: Mobility induced by a change of the income distribution shape and mobility induced by a re-ordering of individuals in the income pecking order. The decomposition procedure based on counterfactual distributions results in a decomposition that is applicable to a broad class of mobility measures. Application to income indices with data for Belgium, Western Germany and the USA indicates that reranking has been the major force behind income mobility.