IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/2079.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Measuring income mobility with dirty data

Author

Listed:
  • Cowell, Frank
  • Schluter, Christian

Abstract

We examine the performance of measures of mobility when allowance is made for the possibility of data contamination. We find that “singlestage” indices – those that are applied directly to a sample from a multivariate income distribution – usually prove to be non-robust in the face of contamination. However, “two-stage” models of mobility – where the distribution is first “discretised” into income intervals and then a transition matrix or other tool is applied – may be robust if the first stage if appropriately specified.

Suggested Citation

  • Cowell, Frank & Schluter, Christian, 1998. "Measuring income mobility with dirty data," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 2079, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
  • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:2079
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/2079/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. A.B. Atkinson & John Hills, 1998. "Exclusion, Employment and Opportunity," CASE Papers case04, Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion, LSE.
    2. Cowell, Frank & Schluter, Christian, 1998. "Income mobility : a robust approach," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 2210, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    3. King, Mervyn A, 1983. "An Index of Inequality: With Applications to Horizontal Equity and Social Mobility," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 51(1), pages 99-115, January.
    4. Maasoumi, Esfandiar & Zandvakili, Sourushe, 1990. "Generalized entropy measures of mobility for different sexes and income levels," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 43(1-2), pages 121-133.
    5. John Bound & Charles Brown & Greg J. Duncan & Willard L. Rodgers, 1989. "Measurement Error In Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Labor Market Surveys: Results From Two Validation Studies," NBER Working Papers 2884, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Mark Casson & John Creedy, 1993. "Industrial Concentration And Economic Inequality," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 82.
    7. Frank A. Cowell, 1985. "Measures of Distributional Change: An Axiomatic Approach," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 52(1), pages 135-151.
    8. Bound, John & Krueger, Alan B, 1991. "The Extent of Measurement Error in Longitudinal Earnings Data: Do Two Wrongs Make a Right?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 9(1), pages 1-24, January.
    9. Fields, Gary S. & Ok, Efe A., 1997. "A Subgroup Decomposable Measure of Relative Income Mobility," Working Papers 97-04, C.V. Starr Center for Applied Economics, New York University.
    10. Cowell, F.A., 2000. "Measurement of inequality," Handbook of Income Distribution, in: A.B. Atkinson & F. Bourguignon (ed.), Handbook of Income Distribution, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 2, pages 87-166, Elsevier.
    11. Maasoumi, Esfandiar & Zandvakili, Sourushe, 1986. "A class of generalized measures of mobility with applications," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 97-102.
    12. A.B. Atkinson & John Hills, 1998. "Exclusion, Employment and Opportunity," CASE Papers 004, Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion, LSE.
    13. Geweke, John & Marshall, Robert C & Zarkin, Gary A, 1986. "Mobility Indices in Continuous Time Markov Chains," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 54(6), pages 1407-1423, November.
    14. Atkinson, Anthony B., 1970. "On the measurement of inequality," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 244-263, September.
    15. Unknown, 1986. "Letters," Choices: The Magazine of Food, Farm, and Resource Issues, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 1(4), pages 1-9.
    16. Shorrocks, Anthony, 1978. "Income inequality and income mobility," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 376-393, December.
    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. Thomas Raferzeder & Rudolf Winter-Ebmer, 2007. "Who is on the rise in Austria: Wage mobility and mobility risk," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 5(1), pages 39-51, April.
    2. VAN KERM Philippe, 2003. "What Lies Behind Income Mobility? Reranking and Distributional Change in Belgium, Western Germany and the USA," IRISS Working Paper Series 2003-03, IRISS at CEPS/INSTEAD.
    3. Felix Büchel & Joachim R. Frick & Asghar Zaidi, 2004. "Income Mobility in Old Age in Britain and Germany," CASE Papers 089, Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion, LSE.
    4. Philippe Kerm, 2002. "Inference on inequality measures: A Monte Carlo experiment," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 77(1), pages 283-306, December.
    5. VAN KERM Philippe, 2002. "On the magnitude of income mobility in Germany," IRISS Working Paper Series 2002-03, IRISS at CEPS/INSTEAD.
    6. Alesina, Alberto & La Ferrara, Eliana, 2005. "Preferences for redistribution in the land of opportunities," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(5-6), pages 897-931, June.
    7. Checchi, Daniele & Ichino, Andrea & Rustichini, Aldo, 1999. "More equal but less mobile?: Education financing and intergenerational mobility in Italy and in the US," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(3), pages 351-393, December.
    8. VAN KERM Philippe, 2006. "Comparisons of income mobility profiles," IRISS Working Paper Series 2006-03, IRISS at CEPS/INSTEAD.
    9. Van Kerm, Philippe & Pi Alperin, Maria Noel, 2013. "Inequality, growth and mobility: The intertemporal distribution of income in European countries 2003–2007," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 931-939.
    10. repec:dau:papers:123456789/4994 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Longford, N.T. & Pittau, M.G., 2006. "Stability of household income in European countries in the 1990s," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 1364-1383, November.

    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. Frank A Cowell & Christian Schluter, 1998. "Measuring Income Mobility with Dirty Data (published in Ethnic and Racial Studies, 22(3), May 1999)," CASE Papers case16, Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion, LSE.
    2. Frank A Cowell & Christian Schluter, 1998. "Measuring Income Mobility with Dirty Data (published in Ethnic and Racial Studies, 22(3), May 1999)," CASE Papers 016, Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion, LSE.
    3. Cowell, Frank & Schluter, Christian, 1998. "Income mobility : a robust approach," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 2210, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    4. Frank A Cowell & Christian Schluter, 1998. "Income Mobility: A Robust Approach (published in Income Inequality Measurement: From Theory to Practice, J Silber (ed, Dewenter: Kluver , 1999)," STICERD - Distributional Analysis Research Programme Papers 37, Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE.
    5. Markus Jäntti & Stephen P. Jenkins, 2013. "Income Mobility," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 607, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    6. C. Schluter & D. Van De Gaer, 2003. "Mobility as distributional difference," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 03/182, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
    7. Gary Fields, 2010. "Does income mobility equalize longer-term incomes? New measures of an old concept," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 8(4), pages 409-427, December.
    8. Luis Ayala & Mercedes Sastre, 2004. "Europe vs. the United States: is there a trade-off between mobility and inequality?," Journal of Income Distribution, Ad libros publications inc., vol. 13(1-2), pages 4-4, March-Jun.
    9. Van Kerm, Philippe, 2006. "Comparisons of income mobility profiles," ISER Working Paper Series 2006-36, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    10. Thomas Demuynck & Dirk Van de gaer, 2012. "Inequality Adjusted Income Growth," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 79(316), pages 747-765, October.
    11. Rolf Aaberge & Magne Mogstad, 2009. "On the Measurement of Long-Term Income Inequality and Income Mobility," ICER Working Papers 09-2009, ICER - International Centre for Economic Research.
    12. Kai-yuen Tsui, 2009. "Measurement of income mobility: a re-examination," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 33(4), pages 629-645, November.
    13. Satya R. Chakravarty & Nachiketa Chattopadhyay & Nora Lustig & Rodrigo Aranda, 2020. "Measuring Directional Mobility: The Bartholomew and Prais-Bibby Indices Reconsidered," Research on Economic Inequality, in: Inequality, Redistribution and Mobility, volume 28, pages 75-96, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    14. repec:cte:werepe:6070 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. repec:cte:werepe:7274 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Biewen, Martin, 2002. "Bootstrap inference for inequality, mobility and poverty measurement," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 108(2), pages 317-342, June.
    17. Groisman, Fernando & Beccaría, Luis Alberto, 2006. "Income instability, mobility and distribution in Argentina," Revista CEPAL, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL), August.
    18. D'Agostino, Marcello & Dardanoni, Valentino, 2009. "The measurement of rank mobility," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(4), pages 1783-1803, July.
    19. Koutras, Vasileios M. & Drakos, Konstantinos, 2013. "A migration approach for USA banks' capitalization: Are the 00s the same with the 90s?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 131-140.
    20. Ballis, Antonis & Drakos, Konstantinos, 2020. "A Markov Chain Analysis for Capitalization Dynamics in the Cryptocurrency Market," MPRA Paper 109329, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    21. Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay & Gaston Yalonetzky, 2016. "An individual-based approach to measurement of multiple-period mobility for nominal and ordinal variables," Working Papers 65, Queen Mary, University of London, School of Business and Management, Centre for Globalisation Research.
    22. Baochun Peng & Haidong Yuan, 2021. "Dynamic Fairness: Mobility, Inequality, and the Distribution of Prospects," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 123(4), pages 1314-1338, October.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J1 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics
    • C1 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General

    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:ehl:lserod:2079. 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: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.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.