Unemployment Shocks and Income Distribution: How did the Nordic Countries Fare during their Crises?

Rolf Aaberge, Tom Wennemo, Anders Bjorklund, Markus Jantti, Peder Pedersen and Nina Smith

Scandinavian Journal of Economics, 2000, vol. 102, issue 1, 77-99

Abstract: We study the inequality of disposable income in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden during the late 1980s and early 1990s when unemployment rose dramatically in all four countries. A standard measure of inequality — the Gini coefficient – was surprisingly stable in all countries during this period. By decomposing the Gini into income components, we test hypotheses about the reasons for this stable income distribution. Our most straightforward hypothesis, that rising unemployment benefits counteracted the impact of more unequally distributed earnings, receives only limited support. More complex mechanisms seem to have been at work. JEL classification: D30; D31; J60

Date: 2000
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (58)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9442.00185

Related works:
Working Paper: Unemployment Shocks and Income Distribution How Did the Nordic Countries Fare During their Crises? (1997)
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:bla:scandj:v:102:y:2000:i:1:p:77-99

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0347-0520

Access Statistics for this article

Scandinavian Journal of Economics is currently edited by Richard Friberg, Matti Liski and Kjetil Storesletten

More articles in Scandinavian Journal of Economics from Wiley Blackwell
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().