Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

Earnings Inequality in Germany

In: Differences and Changes in Wage Structures

Contents:

Author Info

  • Katharine G. Abraham
  • Susan Houseman

Abstract

Recent studies have documented the growth of earnings inequality in the United States during the 1980s. In contrast to these studies' findings, our analysis of micro data for the former West Germany yields virtually no evidence of growth in earnings inequality over the same period. Between 1978 and 1988, a reduction in the dispersion of earnings among workers in the bottom half of the earnings distribution led to a narrowing of the overall dispersion of earnings in Germany. Earnings differentials across education and age groups remained roughly stable, and there was no general widening of earnings differentials within either education or age groups. German wage setting institutions tend to limit earnings differentials across groups of workers, but differences in wage setting institutions cannot fully explain the differences between trends in earnings inequality in Germany and those in the United States. Both the high quality of the training received by non-college-bound German youth and the fact that the growth of the highly-educated work force did not decelerate in Germany as it did in the United States seem likely to have contributed to these differences.

(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
File URL: http://www.nber.org/chapters/c7863.pdf
Download Restriction: no

Bibliographic Info

as in new window

This chapter was published in:

  • Richard B. Freeman & Lawrence F. Katz, 1995. "Differences and Changes in Wage Structures," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number free95-1, October.
    This item is provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Chapters with number 7863.

    Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberch:7863

    Contact details of provider:
    Postal: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.
    Phone: 617-868-3900
    Email:
    Web page: http://www.nber.org
    More information through EDIRC

    Related research

    Keywords:

    Other versions of this item:

    Find related papers by JEL classification:

    References

    References listed on IDEAS
    Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
    as in new window
    1. Fels, Joachim & Gundlach, Erich, 1990. "More evidence on the puzzle of interindustry wage differentials : the case of West Germany," Open Access publications from Kiel Institute for the World Economy info:hdl:10419/1448, Kiel Institute for the World Economy.
    2. Steven J. Davis, 1992. "Cross-Country Patterns of Change in Relative Wages," NBER Working Papers 4085, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. McKinley L. Blackburn & David E. Bloom & Richard B. Freeman, 1989. "The Declining Economic Position of Less-Skilled American Males," NBER Working Papers 3186, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Lawrence F. Katz & Gary W. Loveman & David G. Blanchflower, 1993. "A Comparison of Changes in the Structure of Wages," NBER Working Papers 4297, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Juhn, Chinhui & Murphy, Kevin M & Pierce, Brooks, 1993. "Wage Inequality and the Rise in Returns to Skill," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(3), pages 410-42, June.
    6. repec:fth:coluec:452 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Marsden, David, 1990. "United Kingdom," Open Access publications from London School of Economics and Political Science http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/, London School of Economics and Political Science.
    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 in new window

    Cited by:
    This item has more than 25 citations. To prevent cluttering this page, these citations are listed on a separate page.

    Lists

    This item is featured on the following reading lists or Wikipedia pages:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberch:7863

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ().

    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 references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

    If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link 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 profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

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