We compare earnings inequality and mobility across the U.S., Canada, France, Germany and the U.K. during the late 1990s. A flexible model of earnings dynamics that isolates positional mobility within a stable earnings distribution is estimated. Earnings trajectories are then simulated, and lifetime annuity value distributions are constructed. Earnings mobility and employment risk are found to be positively correlated with base-year inequality. Taken together they produce more equalization in countries with high cross-section inequality such that the countries in our sample have more similar lifetime inequality levels than cross-section measures suggest.
Authors
Research Fellow Sciences Po and University College London
Jean-Marc is a Research Fellow of the IFS and a Professor of Economics at Sciences Po, Paris, and University College London.
Audra Bowlus
Journal article details
- Publisher
- Journal of the European Economic Association
- Issue
- December 2012
Suggested citation
Bowlus, A and Robin, J. (2012). 'An international comparison of lifetime inequality: how continental europe resembles North America' (2012)
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