In Germany, two observations can be made over the past 20 years: First, income inequality has been constantly increasing while, second, the average household size has been declining dramatically. The analysis of income distribution relies on equivalence-weighted incomes which take into account...

In Germany, two observations can be made over the past 20 years: First, income inequality has been constantly increasing while, second, the average household size has been declining dramatically. The analysis of income distribution relies on equivalence-weighted incomes which take into account...

To study the development of wage inequality is important for the economic performance as well as for the development of employment. First, I estimate the remuneration to personal characteristics for Germans and immigrants across the wage distribution using quantile regression. My database is the...

To study the development of wage inequality is important for the economic performance as well as for the development of employment. First, I estimate the remuneration to personal characteristics for Germans and immigrants across the wage distribution using quantile regression. My database is the...

The East-West gap in the German population is believed to originate from migrants escaping the socialist regime in the German Democratic Republic (GDR). We use newly collected regional data and the combination of a regression discontinuity design in space with a difference-in-differences...

Using data from the 1997 and 2002 waves of the German Socio-Economic Panel and from official statistics, I study whether natives are less supportive of state help for the unemployed in regions where the share of foreigners among the unemployed is high. Unlike previous studies, I use...

We examine the gender wealth gap with a focus on pension wealth and statutory pension rights. By taking into account employment characteristics of women and men, we are able and identify the extent to which the redistributive effect of pension rights reduces the gap. The empirical basis of this...

Using data from the 1997 and 2002 waves of the German Socio-Economic Panel and from official statistics, I study whether natives are less supportive of state help for the unemployed in regions where the share of foreigners among the unemployed is high. Unlike previous studies, I use...

This paper examines to what extent marital sorting affects cross-sectional earnings inequality in Germany over the past three decades, while explicitly taking into account labor supply choices. Using rich micro data, the observed distribution of couples' earnings is compared to a counterfactual...

In this paper we propose different criteria to rank income distributions according to equality of opportunity. Different from existing ones, our criteria explicitly recognize the interplay between circumstances and effort. We characterize them axiomatically and we compare them with existing...