IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ces/ifosdt/v69y2016i13p28-37.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Income Inequality in Germany, Part 1: Is There a Trend Reversal?

Author

Listed:
  • Gabriel Felbermayr
  • Michele Battisti
  • Sybille Lehwald

Abstract

An investigation by the Ifo Institute shows that the Hartz Reforms led to a reduction in inequality in the labour market by lowering unemployment. Even focusing solely on the working population shows a significant trend reversal around 2010. The changed dynamic is primarily due to wage growth in the lower level of wage distribution. Recent data on the distribution of earned income does not support the assertion that Germany is becoming increasingly unequal.

Suggested Citation

  • Gabriel Felbermayr & Michele Battisti & Sybille Lehwald, 2016. "Income Inequality in Germany, Part 1: Is There a Trend Reversal?," ifo Schnelldienst, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 69(13), pages 28-37, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ifosdt:v:69:y:2016:i:13:p:28-37
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.ifo.de/DocDL/sd-2016-13-felbermayr-etal-einkommensungleichheit-2016-07-14.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David Card & Jörg Heining & Patrick Kline, 2013. "Workplace Heterogeneity and the Rise of West German Wage Inequality," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 128(3), pages 967-1015.
    2. Timm Bönke & Giacomo Corneo & Holger Lüthen, 2015. "Lifetime Earnings Inequality in Germany," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 33(1), pages 171-208.
    3. Christian Dustmann & Johannes Ludsteck & Uta Schönberg, 2009. "Revisiting the German Wage Structure," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(2), pages 843-881.
    4. Michele Battisti & Gabriel Felbermayr & Sybille Lehwald, 2016. "Inequality in Germany: Myths, Facts, and Policy Implications," ifo Working Paper Series 217, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich.
    5. Christian Dustmann & Bernd Fitzenberger & Uta Sch?nberg & Alexandra Spitz-Oener, 2014. "From Sick Man of Europe to Economic Superstar: Germany's Resurgent Economy," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 28(1), pages 167-188, Winter.
    6. Markus M. Grabka & Jan Goebel & Jürgen Schupp, 2012. "Has Income Inequality Spiked in Germany?," DIW Economic Bulletin, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research, vol. 2(12), pages 3-14.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Feld, Lars P. & Schmidt, Christoph M. & Schnabel, Isabel & Truger, Achim & Wieland, Volker, 2019. "Den Strukturwandel meistern. Jahresgutachten 2019/20 [Dealing with Structural Change. Annual Report 2019/20]," Annual Economic Reports / Jahresgutachten, German Council of Economic Experts / Sachverständigenrat zur Begutachtung der gesamtwirtschaftlichen Entwicklung, volume 127, number 201920.
    2. Hufe, Paul & Peichl, Andreas & Stöckli, Marc, 2018. "Ökonomische Ungleichheit in Deutschland – ein Überblick," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 19(3), pages 185-199.
    3. Andreas Peichl & Marc Stöckli, 2018. "Ungleichheit und Umverteilung in Deutschland: Trends und Handlungsoptionen," ifo Schnelldienst, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 71(15), pages 18-22, August.
    4. Till van Treeck & Judith Niehues & Galina Kolev & Piotr Pysz & Peter Hampe & Andreas Peichl & Marc Stöckli & Georg Cremer, 2018. "How Fair Is the World? – Social Inequality and Economic Growth," ifo Schnelldienst, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 71(15), pages 03-25, August.
    5. Anger, Christina & Hüther, Michael & Klös, Hans-Peter & Niehues, Judith & Röhl, Klaus-Heiner & Schäfer, Holger, 2017. "Gerechtigkeitspolitische Handlungsfelder in Deutschland: Relevante Probleme angemessen angehen," IW policy papers 10/2017, Institut der deutschen Wirtschaft (IW) / German Economic Institute.
    6. Gabriel Felbermayr & Michele Battisti & Jan-Philipp Suchta, 2017. "Life Satisfaction and its Distribution in Germany: A Survey," ifo Schnelldienst, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 70(09), pages 19-30, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Giesecke, Matthias & Bönke, Timm & Lüthen, Holger, 2011. "The Dynamics of Earnings in Germany: Evidence from Social Security Records," VfS Annual Conference 2011 (Frankfurt, Main): The Order of the World Economy - Lessons from the Crisis 48692, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    2. Moritz Drechsel‐Grau & Andreas Peichl & Kai D. Schmid & Johannes F. Schmieder & Hannes Walz & Stefanie Wolter, 2022. "Inequality and income dynamics in Germany," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 13(4), pages 1593-1635, November.
    3. Corneo Giacomo, 2015. "Kreuz und quer durch die deutsche Einkommensverteilung," Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, De Gruyter, vol. 16(2), pages 109-126, June.
    4. Feld, Lars P. & Schmidt, Christoph M. & Schnabel, Isabel & Truger, Achim & Wieland, Volker, 2019. "Den Strukturwandel meistern. Jahresgutachten 2019/20 [Dealing with Structural Change. Annual Report 2019/20]," Annual Economic Reports / Jahresgutachten, German Council of Economic Experts / Sachverständigenrat zur Begutachtung der gesamtwirtschaftlichen Entwicklung, volume 127, number 201920.
    5. Biewen, Martin & Fitzenberger, Bernd & de Lazzer, Jakob, 2017. "Rising Wage Inequality in Germany: Increasing Heterogeneity and Changing Selection into Full-Time Work," IZA Discussion Papers 11072, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Dirk Antonczyk & Thomas DeLeire & Bernd Fitzenberger, 2018. "Polarization and Rising Wage Inequality: Comparing the U.S. and Germany," Econometrics, MDPI, vol. 6(2), pages 1-33, April.
    7. Böhm, Michael Johannes & Gaudecker, Hans-Martin von & Schran, Felix, 2019. "Occupation Growth, Skill Prices, and Wage Inequality," IZA Discussion Papers 12647, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    8. Christian Dustmann & Bernd Fitzenberger & Markus Zimmermann, 2022. "Housing Expenditure and Income Inequality," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 132(645), pages 1709-1736.
    9. Carrillo-Tudela, Carlos & Launov, Andrey & Robin, Jean-Marc, 2021. "The fall in german unemployment: A flow analysis," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 132(C).
    10. Haywood, Luke & Neumann, Michael, 2021. "Equilibrium effects of tax exemptions for low pay," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    11. Clemens Fuest & Andreas Peichl & Sebastian Siegloch, 2018. "Do Higher Corporate Taxes Reduce Wages? Micro Evidence from Germany," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(2), pages 393-418, February.
    12. Judith Niehues & Maximilian Stockhausen & Andreas Peichl & Charlotte Bartels & Mario Bossler & Bernd Fitzenberger & Arnim Seidlitz & Moritz Kuhn & Till Baldenius & Sebastian Kohl & Moritz Schularick &, 2020. "Ungleichheit unter der Lupe – neue politische Antworten auf ein bekanntes Thema," ifo Schnelldienst, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 73(02), pages 03-26, February.
    13. Charlotte Bartels & Carsten Schroeder, 2020. "Income, consumption and wealth inequality in Germany: Three concepts, three stories?," Basic Papers 2, Forum New Economy.
    14. Cortes, Guido Matias & Lerche, Adrian & Schönberg, Uta & Tschopp, Jeanne, 2023. "Technological Change, Firm Heterogeneity and Wage Inequality," IZA Discussion Papers 16070, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    15. Lea Immel, 2021. "The Impact of Labor Market Reforms on Income Inequality: Evidence from the German Hartz Reforms," ifo Working Paper Series 347, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich.
    16. Baumgarten, Daniel & Irlacher, Michael & Koch, Michael, 2020. "Offshoring and non-monotonic employment effects across industries in general equilibrium," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 130(C).
    17. Timm Bönke & Holger Lüthen, 2020. "Die Ungleichheit von Lebenserwerbseinkommen," Wirtschaftsdienst, Springer;ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 100(4), pages 241-245, April.
    18. Benjamin Lochner & Bastian Schulz, 2016. "Labor Market Sorting in Germany," CESifo Working Paper Series 6066, CESifo.
    19. Koomen, Miriam & Backes-Gellner, Uschi, 2022. "Occupational tasks and wage inequality in West Germany: A decomposition analysis," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    20. Benjamin Lochner & Bastian Schulz, 2024. "Firm Productivity, Wages, and Sorting," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 42(1), pages 85-119.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ces:ifosdt:v:69:y:2016:i:13:p:28-37. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ifooode.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.