Assessments of whose income growth is the greatest and whose is the smallest are typically based on comparisons of income changes for income groups (e.g. rich versus poor) or income values (e.g. quantiles). However, income group and quantile composition changes over time because of income...

The job search literature suggests that an increase in the proportion of job seekers who are employed reduces the probability of unemployed people finding a job. However, there is little evidence indicating that employed and unemployed job seekers have similar observed characteristics or that...

Using the UK Labour Force Survey, we study wage gaps for disabled men after the introduction of the Disability Discrimination Act. We estimate wage gaps at the mean and at different quantiles of the wage distribution, and decompose them into the part explained by differences in workers? and job...

This paper provides a self-contained introduction to the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS), concentrating on aspects relevant to analysis of the distribution of household income. I discuss BHPS design features and how data on net household income are derived. The BHPS net household income...

We use the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) to analyse whether employed and unemployed job seekers are substitutes by comparing their individual characteristics and past (un)employment and job histories. Since the BHPS does not directly collect information on job search activities of...

We use individual data for Great Britain over the period 1992-2009 to compare the probability that employed and unemployed job seekers find a job, and the quality of the job they find. The job finding rate of unemployed job seekers is 50 percent higher than that of employed job seekers, and this...

We provide new evidence about earnings and labour market volatility in Britain over the period 1992-2008, and for women as well as men. (Most research about volatility refers to earnings volatility for US men.) We show that earnings volatility declined slightly for both men and women over the...

We compare school-to-work transitions of British graduates belonging to ethnic minorities to those of white British. Six months after graduation ethnic minorities are substantially less likely to be employed than white British even after accounting for parental background, local area...

Estimates of UK income inequality trends differ substantially according to whether estimates are based on household survey data (used for official statistics) or tax return data (used in the top incomes literature). We reconcile differences in variable definitions and combine survey and tax...

I determine UK income inequality levels and trends by combining inequality estimates from tax return data (for the "rich") and household survey data (for the "non-rich"), taking advantage of the better coverage of top incomes in tax return data (which I demonstrate) and creating income variables...