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An International Comparison of Equalization Mobility and Lifetime Earnings Inequality: How Continental Europe Resembles North America

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  • Audra Bowlus

    (UWO - University of Western Ontario)

  • Jean-Marc Robin

    (ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 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 positional mobility within a stable earnings distribution is estimated. Earnings trajectories are then simulated, and lifetime annuity value distributions are constructed. Earnings mobility and employment risk are found to be positively correlated with base-year inequality. Taken together they produce more equalization in countries with high cross-section inequality such that the countries in our sample have more similar lifetime inequality levels than crosssectionmeasures suggest.

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  • Audra Bowlus & Jean-Marc Robin, 2010. "An International Comparison of Equalization Mobility and Lifetime Earnings Inequality: How Continental Europe Resembles North America," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03473768, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:spmain:hal-03473768
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://sciencespo.hal.science/hal-03473768
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    1. Mike Brewer & Monica Costa Dias & Jonathan Shaw, 2012. "Lifetime inequality and redistribution," IFS Working Papers W12/23, Institute for Fiscal Studies.

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