IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/jae/japmet/v16y2001i5p599-617.html

Income distribution and income dynamics in the United Kingdom

Author

Listed:
  • Jayasri Dutta

    (Faculty of Economics and Politics, Sidgwick Avenue, Cambridge CB3 9DD, UK)

  • J. A. Sefton

    (National Institute of Economic and Social Research, 2 Dean Trench Street, London SW1P 3HE, UK)

  • M. R. WEALE

    (National Institute of Economic and Social Research, 2 Dean Trench Street, London SW1P 3HE, UK)

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a model of income dynamics which takes account of mobility both within and between jobs. The model is a hybrid of the mover-stayer model of income dynamics and a geometric random walk. In any period, individuals face a discrete probability of 'moving', in which case their income is a random drawn from a stationary recurrent distribution. Otherwise, they 'stay' and incomes follow a geometric random walk. The model is estimated on income transition data for the United Kingdom from the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) and provides a good explanation of observed non-linearities in income dynamics. The steady-state distribution of the model provides a good fit for the observed, cross-sectional distribution of earnings. We also evaluate the impact of tertiary education on income transitions and on the long-run distribution of incomes. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Suggested Citation

  • Jayasri Dutta & J. A. Sefton & M. R. WEALE, 2001. "Income distribution and income dynamics in the United Kingdom," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(5), pages 599-617.
    • Handle: RePEc:jae:japmet:v:16:y:2001:i:5:p:599-617
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://qed.econ.queensu.ca:80/jae/2001-v16.5/
    File Function: Supporting data files and programs
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. McDonald, James B & Mantrala, Anand, 1995. "The Distribution of Personal Income: Revisited," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 10(2), pages 201-204, April-Jun.
    2. Majumder, Amita & Chakravarty, Satya Ranjan, 1990. "Distribution of Personal Income: Development of a New Model and Its Application to U.S. Income Data," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 5(2), pages 189-196, April-Jun.
    3. Abowd, John M & Card, David, 1989. "On the Covariance Structure of Earnings and Hours Changes," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(2), pages 411-445, March.
    4. Atkinson, Anthony B., 1970. "On the measurement of inequality," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 244-263, September.
    5. Peter Gottschalk & Robert Moffitt, 1994. "The Growth of Earnings Instability in the U.S. Labor Market," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 25(2), pages 217-272.
    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. Dr Richard Dorsett & Dr Silvia Lui & Dr Martin Weale, 2010. "Economic Benefits of Lifelong Learning," National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) Discussion Papers 352, National Institute of Economic and Social Research.
    2. Gustavo De Santis & Giambattista Salinari, 2008. "On the Evolution of Household Income," LIS Working papers 488, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    3. Sebastian Barnes & Gregory Thwaites, 2005. "'Real-world' mortgages, consumption volatility and the low inflation environment," Bank of England working papers 273, Bank of England.
    4. Richard Dorsett & Silvia Lui & Martin Weale, 2016. "The effect of lifelong learning on men’s wages," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 51(2), pages 737-762, September.
    5. Miles, David & Sefton, James, 2002. "Optimal Social Security Design," CEPR Discussion Papers 3290, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    6. Piet, Laurent & Saint-Cyr, Legrand D.F., 2016. "Projection de la population des exploitations agricoles françaises à l’horizon 2025," Working Papers 250208, Institut National de la recherche Agronomique (INRA), Departement Sciences Sociales, Agriculture et Alimentation, Espace et Environnement (SAE2).
    7. Sefton, J. A., 2000. "A solution method for consumption decisions in a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 24(5-7), pages 1097-1119, June.
    8. Lefilleur, Julien & Maurel, Mathilde, 2010. "Inter- and intra-industry linkages as a determinant of FDI in Central and Eastern Europe," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 309-330, September.
    9. Legrand D. F. Saint-Cyr & Laurent Piet, 2017. "Movers and stayers in the farming sector: accounting for unobserved heterogeneity in structural change," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series C, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 66(4), pages 777-795, August.
    10. Saint-Cyr, Legrand D. F., 2016. "Accounting for farm heterogeneity in the assessment of agricultural policy impacts on structural change," 2016 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Boston, Massachusetts 235778, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.

    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. Christian Kleiber, 2008. "A Guide to the Dagum Distributions," Economic Studies in Inequality, Social Exclusion, and Well-Being, in: Duangkamon Chotikapanich (ed.), Modeling Income Distributions and Lorenz Curves, chapter 6, pages 97-117, Springer.
    2. Fabio Clementi & Mauro Gallegati & Giorgio Kaniadakis, 2010. "A model of personal income distribution with application to Italian data," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 39(2), pages 559-591, October.
    3. Vladimir Hlasny, 2021. "Parametric representation of the top of income distributions: Options, historical evidence, and model selection," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(4), pages 1217-1256, September.
    4. Donna Brown & Peter Ingram & Jonathan Wadsworth, 2004. "Everyone's A Winner? Union Effects on Persistence in Private Sector Wage Settlements: Longitudinal Evidence from Britain," School of Economics Discussion Papers 1104, School of Economics, University of Surrey.
    5. Burkhauser, Richard V & Holtz-Eakin, Douglas & Rhody, Stephen E, 1997. "Labor Earnings Mobility and Inequality in the United States and Germany during the Growth Years of the 1980s," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 38(4), pages 775-794, November.
    6. Costas Meghir, 2004. "A Retrospective on Friedman's Theory of Permanent Income," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 114(496), pages 293-306, June.
    7. Kai Liu, 2010. "Wage Risk, On-the-job Search and Partial Insurance," 2010 Meeting Papers 1136, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    8. Lance Lochner & Youngki Shin, 2014. "Understanding Earnings Dynamics: Identifying and Estimating the Changing Roles of Unobserved Ability, Permanent and Transitory Shocks," NBER Working Papers 20068, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Sung Y. Park & Anil K. Bera, 2018. "Information theoretic approaches to income density estimation with an application to the U.S. income data," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 16(4), pages 461-486, December.
    10. Ann Huff Stevens, 2001. "Changes in Earnings Instability and Job Loss," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 55(1), pages 60-78, October.
    11. Cappellari, Lorenzo & Jenkins, Stephen P., 2014. "Earnings and labour market volatility in Britain, with a transatlantic comparison," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 201-211.
    12. Robert Moffitt & Peter Gottschalk, 2011. "Trends in the covariance structure of earnings in the U.S.: 1969–1987," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 9(3), pages 439-459, September.
    13. Robert A. Moffitt, 2020. "Reconciling Trends in U.S. Male Earnings Volatility: Results from a Four Data Set Project," NBER Working Papers 27664, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Adriaan S. Kalwij & Rob Alessie, 2007. "Permanent and transitory wages of British men, 1975-2001: year, age and cohort effects," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(6), pages 1063-1093.
    15. Liu, Kai, 2015. "Wage Risk and the Value of Job Mobility in Early Employment Careers," IZA Discussion Papers 9256, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    16. Michael Baker & Gary Solon, 2003. "Earnings Dynamics and Inequality among Canadian Men, 1976-1992: Evidence from Longitudinal Income Tax Records," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 21(2), pages 267-288, April.
    17. Bhashkar Mazumder, 2001. "The mis-measurement of permanent earnings: new evidence from Social Security earnings data," Working Paper Series WP-01-24, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    18. Arpita Chatterjee & Aarti Singh & Tahlee Stone, 2016. "Understanding Wage Inequality in Australia," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 92(298), pages 348-360, September.
    19. Costas Meghir & Luigi Pistaferri, 2004. "Income Variance Dynamics and Heterogeneity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 72(1), pages 1-32, January.
    20. Christophe Muller, 2001. "The Properties of the Watts Poverty Index under Lognormality," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 9(1), pages 1-9.

    More about this item

    Lists

    This item is featured on the following reading lists, Wikipedia, or ReplicationWiki pages:
    1. Income distribution and income dynamics in the United Kingdom (Journal of Applied Econometrics 2001) in ReplicationWiki

    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:jae:japmet:v:16:y:2001:i:5:p:599-617. 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: Wiley-Blackwell Digital Licensing or Christopher F. Baum (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.interscience.wiley.com/jpages/0883-7252/ .

    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.