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An international comparison of lifetime labor income values and inequality

Author

Listed:
  • Audra Bowlus

    (UWO - University of Western Ontario)

  • Jean-Marc Robin

    (Economics department - MIT - Massachusetts Institute of Technology, UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris sciences et lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement)

Abstract

We compare earnings inequality and mobility across the U.S., Canada, France, Germany and the U.K. during the late 1990s. A flexible model of earnings dynamics that isolates mobility within a stable earnings distribution, allowing, or not, for fixed effects is estimated. Earnings trajectories are then simulated given baseyear earnings and lifetime annuity value distributions are constructed. Equalizing mobility is positively correlated with earnings inequality. The models with and without fixed effects provide upper and lower bounds, respectively, on the resultant lifetime inequality levels, and reveal that the countries have more similar long run inequality levels than cross-section measures suggest.

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  • Audra Bowlus & Jean-Marc Robin, 2008. "An international comparison of lifetime labor income values and inequality," Working Papers hal-03459796, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-03459796
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://sciencespo.hal.science/hal-03459796
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Peter Haan & Daniel Kemptner & Victoria Prowse, 2017. "Insurance, Redistribution, and the Inequality of Lifetime Income," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1716, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.

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