IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/amz/wpaper/2017-14.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

How has the middle fared in the netherlands? A tale of stagnation and population shifts

Author

Listed:
  • Salverda, Wiemer
  • Thewissen, Stefan

Abstract

How have ordinary households fared economically in the Netherlands between 1977 and 2014? Combining tax records with labour force survey information, we show that household incomes have lagged well behind the strong GDP performance, underpinned by an active emphasis on wage moderation to boost exports. Even though incomes have been stagnant across the distribution, there have been important compositional changes. Pensioners have increased in numbers and relative income, and are now a core group of the middle. Wage earners have moved to the upper half of the income distribution, partly due to a strong expansion of the number and average incomes of (part-time) second earners. We pay particular attention to the Great Recession, where we note worrying trends in the employment of younger workers (ages 18 to 45) and the precariousness of jobs.

Suggested Citation

  • Salverda, Wiemer & Thewissen, Stefan, 2017. "How has the middle fared in the netherlands? A tale of stagnation and population shifts," INET Oxford Working Papers 2017-14, Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford.
    • Handle: RePEc:amz:wpaper:2017-14
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.inet.ox.ac.uk/files/Salverda_26_Thewissen_2017_How_has_the_middle_fared_in_the_Netherlands__A_tale_of_stagnation_and_population_shifts_INET.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christian Bredemeier & Falko Juessen, 2013. "Assortative Mating and Female Labor Supply," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 31(3), pages 603-631.
    2. Melissa S. Kearney & Riley Wilson, 2018. "Male Earnings, Marriageable Men, and Nonmarital Fertility: Evidence from the Fracking Boom," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 100(4), pages 678-690, October.
    3. Rob Euwals & Marike Knoef & Daniel Vuuren, 2011. "The trend in female labour force participation: what can be expected for the future?," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 40(3), pages 729-753, May.
    4. Martin Feldstein, 2017. "Underestimating the Real Growth of GDP, Personal Income, and Productivity," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 31(2), pages 145-164, Spring.
    5. Erica L. Groshen & Brian C. Moyer & Ana M. Aizcorbe & Ralph Bradley & David M. Friedman, 2017. "How Government Statistics Adjust for Potential Biases from Quality Change and New Goods in an Age of Digital Technologies: A View from the Trenches," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 31(2), pages 187-210, Spring.
    6. Florence Jaumotte, 2004. "Labour Force Participation of Women: Empirical Evidence on The Role of Policy and Other Determinants in OECD Countries," OECD Economic Studies, OECD Publishing, vol. 2003(2), pages 51-108.
    7. Chad Syverson, 2017. "Challenges to Mismeasurement Explanations for the US Productivity Slowdown," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 31(2), pages 165-186, Spring.
    8. Wiemer Salverda, 2015. "Individual earnings and household incomes: mutually reinforcing inequalities?," European Journal of Economics and Economic Policies: Intervention, Edward Elgar Publishing, vol. 12(2), pages 190-203, September.
    9. Andrea Brandolini & Anthony B. Atkinson, 2001. "Promise and Pitfalls in the Use of "Secondary" Data-Sets: Income Inequality in OECD Countries As a Case Study," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 39(3), pages 771-799, September.
    10. Atkinson, Anthony B., 2015. "Inequality: what can be done?," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 101810, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Diewert, Erwin & FOX, Kevin J. Fox & SCHREYER, Paul, 2017. "The Digital Economy, New Products and Consumer Welfare," Microeconomics.ca working papers erwin_diewert-2017-12, Vancouver School of Economics, revised 14 Dec 2017.
    2. Brynjolfsson, Erik & Collis, Avinash & Diewert, W. Erwin & Eggers, Felix & Fox, Kevin J., 2019. "GDP-B: Accounting for the Value of New and Free Goods in the Digital Economy," OSF Preprints sptfu, Center for Open Science.
    3. Watanabe, Chihiro & Tou, Yuji & Neittaanmäki, Pekka, 2018. "A new paradox of the digital economy - Structural sources of the limitation of GDP statistics," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 9-23.
    4. Niebel, Thomas, 2019. "Wachstumsperspektiven der digitalen Transformation: Wird der ökonomische Mehrwert der Digitalisierung in der Volkswirtschaftlichen Gesamtrechnung angemessen abgebildet?," Working Paper Forschungsförderung 142, Hans-Böckler-Stiftung, Düsseldorf.
    5. Diewert, Erwin & Fox, Kevin J., 2019. "Productivity Indexes and National Statistics: Theory, Methods and Challenges," Microeconomics.ca working papers erwin_diewert-2019-8, Vancouver School of Economics, revised 25 Apr 2019.
    6. John A. Romley & Dana Goldman & Neeraj Sood & Abe C. Dunn, 2019. "Quantifying Productivity Growth in the Delivery of Important Episodes of Care Within the Medicare Program Using Insurance Claims and Administrative Data," BEA Papers 0111, Bureau of Economic Analysis.
    7. Anna M. Stansbury & Lawrence H. Summers, 2017. "Productivity and Pay: Is the link broken?," NBER Working Papers 24165, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Shane Greenstein, 2020. "The Basic Economics of Internet Infrastructure," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 34(2), pages 192-214, Spring.
    9. Koen Caminada & Kees Goudswaard & Chen Wang & Jinxian Wang, 2019. "Income Inequality and Fiscal Redistribution in 31 Countries After the Crisis," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 61(1), pages 119-148, March.
    10. Gene M. Grossman & Elhanan Helpman & Ezra Oberfield & Thomas Sampson, 2017. "The productivity slowdown and the declining labor share: a neoclassical exploration," CEP Discussion Papers dp1504, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    11. Nicholas Oulton, 2018. "GDP and the System of National Accounts: Past, Present and Future," Discussion Papers 1802, Centre for Macroeconomics (CFM), revised Jun 2018.
    12. , Stone Center & Bleynat, Ingrid & Challú, Amílcar & Segal, Paul, 2020. "Inequality, Living Standards and Growth: Two Centuries of Economic Development in Mexico," SocArXiv 9ztb7, Center for Open Science.
    13. Razzak, Weshah, 2017. "International Productivity Growth Differentials Sectoral Analysis and Missing Productivity," MPRA Paper 84967, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 06 Mar 2018.
    14. Francisco G. Ferreira & Nora Lustig & Daniel Teles, 2015. "Appraising cross-national income inequality databases: An introduction," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 13(4), pages 497-526, December.
    15. Burkhauser, Richard V. & Herault, Nicolas & Jenkins, Stephen P. & Wilkins, Roger, 2016. "What Has Been Happening to UK Income Inequality since the Mid-1990s? Answers from Reconciled and Combined Household Survey and Tax Return Data," IZA Discussion Papers 9718, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    16. Rolf Aaberge & François Bourguignon & Andrea Brandolini & Francisco H. G. Ferreira & Janet C. Gornick & John Hills & Markus Jäntti & Stephen P. Jenkins & Eric Marlier & John Micklewright & Brian Nolan, 2017. "Tony Atkinson and his Legacy," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 63(3), pages 411-444, September.
    17. Josh Martin & Rebecca Riley, 2023. "Productivity measurement - Reassessing the production function from micro to macro," Working Papers 033, The Productivity Institute.
    18. Mo Abdirahman & Diane Coyle & Richard Heys & Will Stewart, 2020. "A Comparison of Deflators for Telecommunications Services Output," Economie et Statistique / Economics and Statistics, Institut National de la Statistique et des Etudes Economiques (INSEE), issue 517-518-5, pages 103-122.
    19. Abe Dunn & Anne Hall & Seidu Dauda, 2022. "Are Medical Care Prices Still Declining? A Re‐Examination Based on Cost‐Effectiveness Studies," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 90(2), pages 859-886, March.
    20. Erik Brynjolfsson & Avinash Collis & Felix Eggers, 2019. "Using massive online choice experiments to measure changes in well-being," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 116(15), pages 7250-7255, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Inequality; household incomes; economic growth; tax data; The Netherlands;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • D60 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - General
    • E01 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General - - - Measurement and Data on National Income and Product Accounts and Wealth; Environmental Accounts

    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:amz:wpaper:2017-14. 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: INET Oxford admin team (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inoxfuk.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.