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Consolidating the Evidence on Income Mobility in the Western States of Germany and the U.S. from 1984-2006

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  • Gulgun Bayaz-Ozturk
  • Richard V. Burkhauser
  • Kenneth A. Couch

Abstract

The cross-national intragenerational income mobility literature assumes within-country mobility is invariant over the period measured. We argue that a great social transformation--German reunification-- abruptly and permanently altered economic mobility. Using standard measures of mobility (with panel data for the western states of Germany and the U.S.) over the entire period 1984-2006, we find the conventional result that income mobility is greater in Germany. But when we cut the data into moving five-year windows and compare mobility before and after reunification, income mobility declines significantly over the years immediately following reunification in Germany but not in the U.S.

Suggested Citation

  • Gulgun Bayaz-Ozturk & Richard V. Burkhauser & Kenneth A. Couch, 2012. "Consolidating the Evidence on Income Mobility in the Western States of Germany and the U.S. from 1984-2006," NBER Working Papers 18618, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:18618
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    Cited by:

    1. Garnero, Andrea & Hijzen, Alexander & Martin, Sébastien, 2019. "More unequal, but more mobile? Earnings inequality and mobility in OECD countries," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 26-35.
    2. P. Jenkins, Stephen & Jäntti, Markus, 2013. "Income mobility," ISER Working Paper Series 2013-23, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    3. Timothy M. Smeeding, 2018. "The PSID in Research and Policy," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 680(1), pages 29-47, November.
    4. Nicholas Rohde & Kam Ki Tang & D.S. Prasada Rao, 2014. "Distributional Characteristics of Income Insecurity in the U.S., Germany, and Britain," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 60(S1), pages 159-176, May.
    5. Olga Cantó & David O. Ruiz, 2015. "The Contribution of Income Mobility to Economic Insecurity in the US and Spain during the Great Recession," Research on Economic Inequality, in: Measurement of Poverty, Deprivation, and Economic Mobility, volume 23, pages 109-152, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    6. Zwysen, Wouter, 2014. "A disadvantaged childhood matters more if local unemployment is high," ISER Working Paper Series 2014-43, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    7. Zbigniew Mogila & Patricia C. Melo & José M. Gaspar, 2020. "Exploring the relation between income mobility and inequality at the regional level using EU-SILC microdata," Working Papers REM 2020/0134, ISEG - Lisbon School of Economics and Management, REM, Universidade de Lisboa.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J1 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics
    • J6 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers

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