Die ungleiche Verteilung der Arbeitseinkommen in Deutschland ist regelmäßig ein heiß diskutiertes Thema in Politik und Gesellschaft. Das Problem dabei: Relevante Daten für deren Berechnung liegen meist erst mit großer zeitlicher Verzögerung von teilweise mehr als zwei Jahren vor....

Das Rentenvermögen, also der Gegenwartswert der Ansprüche an die gesetzliche Rentenversicherung, betriebliche Altersvorsorge und Beamt*innenpensionen, wird typischerweise nicht in die Berechnung von Nettovermögen einbezogen. Nach Daten des Sozio-oekonomischen Panels (SOEP) stellt das...

The unequal distribution of labor income in Germany is a hotly debated topic among policymakers and the general public alike. However, the relevant data for calculating the distribution is usually available with a delay of sometimes over two years. Accordingly, previous studies have only been...

Die Erholung der deutschen Wirtschaft wird zur Geduldsprobe. Im dritten Quartal dieses Jahres lief es schlechter als erwartet - vor allem, weil die privaten Haushalte trotz steigender Löhne und sinkender Inflation ihr Geld nach wie vor nur zurückhaltend ausgeben. Der private Konsum und auch...

The recovery of the German economy is becoming an exercise in patience. In the third quarter of 2023 the economy fared worse than expected, in particular because private households continued to spend their money conservatively despite climbing wages and falling inflation. Both private...

This study provides the first absolute income mobility estimates for postwar Germany. Using various micro data sources, we uncover a steep decline in absolute mobility rates from 81 percent to 59 percent for children's birth cohorts 1962 through 1988. This trend is robust across different ages,...

Two conversion schemes may be employed for assessing income inequality from household equivalent incomes: to weight household units by size or by needs. Using data from the Luxembourg Income Study, we show the sensitivity of country inequality rankings to conversion schemes and explain the...

We analyze the distributive justice of the combined burden of income taxes, social security taxes and public transfers on employee households in the United States on the federal level and in six member states. To investigate whether the treatment of families by the aggregate tax and transfer...

This paper documents the magnitude, pattern, and evolution of lifetime earnings inequality in Germany. Based on a large sample of earning biographies from social security records, we show that the intra-generational distribution of lifetime earnings of male workers has a Gini coefficient around...

Income-expenditure surveys typically provide incomes on the household level. As households can differ in size and needs, a reliable assessment of inequality in living standards, therefore, necessitates the conversion of the original heterogeneous into an artificial quasi-homogeneous population....