East Germany, a unique socialist command economy prior to the 1990s, underwent rapid transition to a market-oriented economic system. This transition has been of intense interest given the environment of Eastern Germany vis-a-vis Western Germany, a setting different from most other transition...

This paper studies the cause of the changes, or lack of, in wage inequality in East Germany during its transition from a socialist to a market-oriented economic system. We are interested in how much of the change in the dispersion of wages can be explained by the changes in the characteristics...

We examine vulnerability to poverty in Tajikistan during the global financial crisis, focusing on the roles played by international migration and remittances, using a formal, practical, and easily decomposable vulnerability measure. Our strategy is to estimate a Markov transition probability...

We compare male and female upward labor income mobility in Germany and the United States using the GSOEP-PSID Cross-National Equivalent File. Our main interest is to test whether a glass ceiling exists for women. Conventional thinking about the glass ceiling highlights the belief that the...

Due to the mixed empirical evidence bearing on the economic determinants, beliefs have been at the center of attention of research into preferences for income redistribution. We elicit preferences for income redistribution through a Discrete Choice Experiment performed in 2008 in Switzerland and...

In this paper, preferences for income redistribution in Switzerland are elicited through a Discrete Choice Experiment (DCE) performed in 2008. In addition to the amount of redistribution as a share of GDP, attributes also included its uses (working poor, the unemployed, old-age pensioners,...

In this paper, the amount of income redistribution in the United States, the European Union, and Switzerland is compared and empirically related to economic, political, and behavioral determinants elaborated in the literature. Lying in between the two poles, Switzerland provides unique evidence...

The sustainability of the welfare state ultimately depends on citizens' preferences for income redistribution. They are elicited through a Discrete Choice Experiment performed in 2008 in Switzerland. Attributes are redistribution as GDP share, its uses (the unemployed, old-age pensioners, people...

We examine the upward labor income mobility of men and women in Germany using the GSOEP Cross National Equivalent File. Women have greater overall income mobility. However, utilizing a measure of upward income mobility and calculating the posterior probability that men's upward income mobility...