Mobility of top incomes in Germany

Katharina Jenderny

No 2013/7, Discussion Papers from Free University Berlin, School of Business & Economics

Abstract: Mobility of top incomes matters for both the openness of the income elite and the share of total income that this group receives. It is thus an important complement information to the growing snapshot literature on top income concentration. I use microlevel panel data of German income tax files that is highly representative for top income households. Top income mobility is assessed in four dimensions: (i) its stability over time, (ii) the degree of mobility between top income fractiles, (iii) the degree of mobility between equally sized groups and mobility in ranks, both of which do not depend on fractile sizes, and (iv) mobility's impact on distributional results. Mobility in terms of annual fractile changes is high between the richest top income fractiles, which is primarily due to tiny fractile sizes. When the fractiles' sizes are controlled for, top income recipients' mobility is lower than that of lower income tax units.

Keywords: income distribution; inequality; top incomes (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D31 D63 H24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur, nep-ltv and nep-pbe
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Mobility of Top Incomes in Germany (2016)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:fubsbe:20137

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