Inequality Trends for Germany in the Last Two Decades: A Tale of Two Countries

Nicola Fuchs-Schuendeln, Dirk Krueger and Mathias Sommer
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Mathias Sommer: University of Mannheim

Review of Economic Dynamics, 2010, vol. 13, issue 1, 103-132

Abstract: In this paper we first document inequality trends in wages, hours worked, earnings, consumption, and wealth for Germany from the last twenty years. We generally find that inequality was relatively stable in West Germany until the German Reunification, and then trended upwards for wages and market incomes, especially after about 1998. Disposable income and consumption, on the other hand, display only a modest increase in inequality over the same period. These trends occured against the backdrop of lower trend growth of earnings, incomes and consumption in the 1990s relative to the 1980s. In the second part of the paper we further analyze the differences between East and West Germans in terms of the evolution of levels and inequality of wages, income, and consumption. (Copyright: Elsevier)

Keywords: Inequality; German reunification (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D31 D33 E24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (196)

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Working Paper: Inequality Trends for Germany in the Last Two Decades: A Tale of Two Countries (2009)
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DOI: 10.1016/j.red.2009.09.004

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