We propose a social welfare function to evaluate a profile of income streams and compare the welfare gain of the actual profile relative to the income profile where the individual receives his first period income in each period. We derive necessary and sufficient conditions for the welfare gain...

We survey the literature on income mobility, aiming to provide an integrated discussion of mobility within- and between-generations. We review mobility concepts, descriptive devices, measurement methods, data sources, and recent empirical evidence.

We investigate the accuracy of ex ante assessments of vulnerability to income poverty using cross-sectional data and panel data. We use long-term panel data from Germany and apply different regression models, based on household covariates and previous-year equivalence income, to classify a...

We study the intergenerational transmission of welfare benefit receipt in Germany. We first describe the correlation between welfare receipt experienced in the parental household and subsequent own welfare receipt of young adults. In a second step, we investigate whether the observed...

Closely following recent innovations in the literature on the multidimensional measurement of poverty, this paper provides similar measures for the top of the distribution using a dual cutoff method to identify individuals, who can be considered as rich in a multidimensional setting. We use this...

This paper presents and compares trends in income inequality in Switzerland and Germany from 2000 to 2009 using harmonized data from the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) and the Swiss Household Panel (SHP). Whereas in Germany inequality has increased substantially during this period, in Switzerland...

The role of money in producing sustained subjective well-being seems to be seriously compromised by social comparisons and habituation. But does that necessarily mean that we would be better off doing something else instead? This paper suggests that the phenomena of comparison and habituation...

Based on nationally representative data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), and the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) we analyze the intergenerational transmission of economic and social (dis-)advantages in Germany, the United States and...

This paper explores the determinants of individual well-being as measured by self-reported levels of satisfaction with income. Making full use of the panel data nature of the German Socio-Economic Panel, we provide empirical evidence for well-being depending on absolute and on relative levels of...

There is by now a vast number of studies which document a sharp increase in crosssectional wage inequality during the 2000s. It is often assumed that this inequality is of a "permanent nature" which in turn is used as an argument calling for government intervention. We examine these claims using...