We decompose the Lorenz curve (LC) and its associated concentration curve (CC) by population subgroups. To illustrate these decompositions, we examine changes in earnings inequality among West Germans, East Germans, and foreign guest workers during the recent German unification. We show that...

Nearly 25 years after the German reunification, vastly different living conditions between East and West Germany still remain. This is particularly true for the distribution of net wealth which is of special importance for the well-being of individuals. Wealth provides utility in a number of...

This chapter is concerned with issues arising from the construction of ethical measures of inequality and poverty. The recent literature on measurement of inequality and poverty emphasizes the close connection between social welfare functions and ethical indices of inequality and poverty. This...

We use recently developed methods to perform decompositions of the Lorenz curve in the United States by race, region, and marital status. The decomposed Lorenz ordinates are used to construct interdistributional Lorenz curves (ILCs), which allow us to identify an economic advantage by one...

This paper investigates the evolution of wages and the recent tendency to rising wage inequality in Germany, based on the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) for 1984 to 2004. Between 1984 and 1994 the wage distribution was fairly stable. Wage inequality started to increase around 1994 in...