IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehu/dfaeii/6707.html

Inequality for Wage Earners and Self-Employed: Evidence from Panel Data

Author

Listed:
  • Albarrán, Pedro
  • Carrasco, Raquel
  • Martínez Granado, María Teresa

Abstract

In this paper we study the evolution of income inequality for employees and self-employed workers. We highlight the importance of separately analyze these different sources of income to gain a broader understanding of inequality. Using Spanish panel data on income and consumption from the ECPF for the period 1987-96, we decompose income shocks into a permanent and a transitory component. We find that there are noticeable differences in the evolution of income inequality, as well as in the relative importance of the permanent and transitory components across these groups. Our results points that the evolution of inequality can be basically explained by movements in the transitory component of income for the self-employed, while for the employees it is mainly driven by the permanent component, specially at the end of the period. Given these disparities, it seems that these two sources of income should be studied separately and that different policies are suitable for each group.

Suggested Citation

  • Albarrán, Pedro & Carrasco, Raquel & Martínez Granado, María Teresa, 2007. "Inequality for Wage Earners and Self-Employed: Evidence from Panel Data," DFAEII Working Papers 1988-088X, University of the Basque Country - Department of Foundations of Economic Analysis II.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehu:dfaeii:6707
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://addi.ehu.eus/handle/10810/6707
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Martínez-Granado, Maite, 1998. "Self-employment and labour market transitions: a multiple state model," UC3M Working papers. Economics 4159, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de Economía.
    2. repec:bla:econom:v:62:y:1995:i:245:p:29-63 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Blau, David M, 1987. "A Time-Series Analysis of Self-employment in the United State," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 95(3), pages 445-467, June.
    4. Carrington, William J & McCue, Kristin & Pierce, Brooks, 1996. "The Role of Employer-Employee Interactions in Labor Market Cycles: Evidence from the Self-Employed," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 14(4), pages 571-602, October.
    5. Martin Browning & Annamaria Lusardi, 1996. "Household Saving: Micro Theories and Micro Facts," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 34(4), pages 1797-1855, December.
    6. repec:bla:revinw:v:45:y:1999:i:2:p:263-74 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Antonio Cutanda, 2002. "La medición de la desigualdad a través de un modelo de elección intertemporal," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 163(4), pages 93-117, December.
    8. Robert A. Moffitt & Peter Gottschalk, 2002. "Trends in the Transitory Variance of Earnings in the United States," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(478), pages 68-73, March.
    9. Javier Alvarez, 2004. "Dynamics and Seasonality in Quarterly Panel Data: An Analysis of Earnings Mobility in Spain," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 22, pages 443-456, October.
    10. Richard Blundell & Ian Preston, 1998. "Consumption Inequality and Income Uncertainty," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(2), pages 603-640.
    11. Richard Blundell & Luigi Pistaferri & Ian Preston, 2008. "Consumption Inequality and Partial Insurance," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(5), pages 1887-1921, December.
    12. Simon C. Parker & Yacine Belghitar & Tim Barmby, 2005. "Wage Uncertainty and the Labour Supply of Self-Employed Workers," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 115(502), pages 190-207, March.
    13. Jean-Marc Falter, 2007. "Self-employment and earning inequality," Journal of Income Distribution, Ad libros publications inc., vol. 16(2), pages 106-127, June.
    14. Dickens, Richard, 2000. "The Evolution of Individual Male Earnings in Great Britain: 1975-95," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 110(460), pages 27-49, January.
    15. McClements, L. D., 1977. "Equivalence scales for children," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 191-210, October.
    16. Fatih Guvenen, 2009. "An Empirical Investigation of Labor Income Processes," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 12(1), pages 58-79, January.
    17. Barton H. Hamilton, 2000. "Does Entrepreneurship Pay? An Empirical Analysis of the Returns to Self-Employment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(3), pages 604-631, June.
    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. Eisenhauer, Philipp & Pfeiffer, Friedhelm, 2008. "Assessing intergenerational earnings persistence among German workers," Zeitschrift für ArbeitsmarktForschung - Journal for Labour Market Research, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany], vol. 41(2/3), pages 119-137.
    2. Jens Holscher & Cristiano Perugini & Fabrizio Pompei, 2011. "Wage inequality, labour market flexibility and duality in Eastern and Western Europe," Post-Communist Economies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(3), pages 271-310.
    3. Eisenhauer, Philipp & Pfeiffer, Friedhelm, 2008. "Assessing intergenerational earnings persistence among German workers," Zeitschrift für ArbeitsmarktForschung - Journal for Labour Market Research, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany], vol. 41(2/3), pages 119-137.
    4. Josep Pijoan-Mas & Virginia Sanchez-Marcos, 2010. "Spain is Different: Falling Trends of Inequality," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 13(1), pages 154-178, January.
    5. Eisenhauer, Philipp & Pfeiffer, Friedhelm, 2008. "Assessing intergenerational earnings persistence among German workers," Zeitschrift für ArbeitsmarktForschung - Journal for Labour Market Research, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany], vol. 41(2/3), pages 119-137.

    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. Pedro Albarran & Raquel Carrasco & Maite Martinez‐Granado, 2009. "Inequality for Wage Earners and Self‐Employed: Evidence from Panel Data," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 71(4), pages 491-518, August.
    2. Meghir, Costas & Pistaferri, Luigi, 2011. "Earnings, Consumption and Life Cycle Choices," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 9, pages 773-854, Elsevier.
    3. Otto Kässi, 2014. "Earnings dynamics of men and women in Finland: permanent inequality versus earnings instability," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 46(2), pages 451-477, March.
    4. Timm Bönke & Matthias Giesecke & Holger Lüthen, 2015. "The Dynamics of Earnings in Germany: Evidence from Social Security Records," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1514, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    5. Etheridge, Ben, 2015. "A test of the household income process using consumption and wealth data," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 129-157.
    6. Primiceri, Giorgio E. & van Rens, Thijs, 2009. "Heterogeneous life-cycle profiles, income risk and consumption inequality," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(1), pages 20-39, January.
    7. Mirko Felchner, 2015. "Einkommensdynamik bei Selbständigen als Freie Berufe und abhängig Beschäftigte Eine dynamische Paneldatenschätzung mit Daten des Sozio-oekonomischen Panels," FFB-Discussionpaper 101, Research Institute on Professions (Forschungsinstitut Freie Berufe (FFB)), LEUPHANA University Lüneburg.
    8. Emma Tominey, 2010. "The Timing of Parental Income and Child Outcomes: The Role of Permanent and Transitory Shocks," CEE Discussion Papers 0120, Centre for the Economics of Education, LSE.
    9. Masakatsu Okubo, 2015. "Earnings Dynamics and Profile Heterogeneity: Estimates from Japanese Panel Data," The Japanese Economic Review, Japanese Economic Association, vol. 66(1), pages 112-146, March.
    10. Dmytro Hryshko, 2012. "Labor income profiles are not heterogeneous: Evidence from income growth rates," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 3(2), pages 177-209, July.
    11. 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.
    12. Gizem Koşar & Wilbert van der Klaauw, 2025. "Workers’ Perceptions of Earnings Growth and Employment Risk," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 43(S1), pages 83-121.
    13. 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.
    14. Jonathan Heathcote & Kjetil Storesletten & Giovanni L. Violante, 2014. "Consumption and Labor Supply with Partial Insurance: An Analytical Framework," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(7), pages 2075-2126, July.
    15. Sadaf Sadaf, 2024. "Income and consumption inequality trends: a comparative analysis between paid employees and the self-employed," Journal for Labour Market Research, Springer;Institute for Employment Research/ Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), vol. 58(1), pages 1-25, December.
    16. Magnac, Thierry & Pistolesi, Nicolas & Roux, Sébastien, 2013. "Post schooling human capital investments and the life cycle variance of earnings," TSE Working Papers 13-380, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    17. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 2003. "Has the business cycle changed?," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 9-56.
    18. Fatih Guvenen, 2007. "Learning Your Earning: Are Labor Income Shocks Really Very Persistent?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(3), pages 687-712, June.
    19. Emma Tominey, 2010. "The Timing of Parental Income and Child Outcomes: The Role of Permanent and Transitory Shocks," Discussion Papers 10/21, Department of Economics, University of York.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    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:ehu:dfaeii:6707. 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: Alcira Macías Redondo (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/f1ehues.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.