The Distribution of National Income in Germany, 1992-2019

Stefan Bach, Charlotte Bartels and Theresa Neef

No 2102, Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin from DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research

Abstract: This paper analyzes the distribution and composition of pre-tax national income in Germany since 1992, combining personal income tax returns, household survey data, and national accounts. Inequality rose from the 1990s to the late 2000s due to falling labor incomes among the bottom 50% and rising incomes in the top 10%. This trend reversed after 2007 as labor incomes across the bottom 90% increased. The top 1% income share, dominated by business income, remained relatively stable between 1992 and 2019. A large share of Germany’s top 1% earners are non-corporate business owners in laborintensive professions. At least half of the business owners in P99-99.9 and a quarter in the top 0.1% operate firms in professional services – a pattern mirroring the United States. From 1992 to 2019, Germany’s top 0.1% income concentration exceeded France’s and matched U.S. levels until the late 2000s.

Keywords: Income distribution; labor income; capital income; top Incomes (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D31 E01 H2 H5 J3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 55 p.
Date: 2024
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his, nep-lma and nep-pbe
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.diw.de/documents/publikationen/73/diw_01.c.928505.de/dp2102.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: The distribution of national income in Germany, 1992-2019 (2024)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp2102

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin from DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Bibliothek ().