Documents Förster, Michael F. 10 results

"The shares of top income recipients in total pre-tax income have increased in OECD countries in the past three decades, particularly in most of the English-speaking countries but also in some Nordic (from low levels) and Southern European countries. Today, the richest one percent receives between 7% of all pre-tax income in Denmark and the Netherlands up to almost 20% in the United States. This increase is the result of the top 1% capturing a disproportionate share of overall income growth over the past thirty years: around 20 – 25% in Australia and the United Kingdom, up to 37% in Canada and even 47% in the United States. At the same time, tax reforms in almost all OECD countries reduced top personal income tax rates as well as rates of other taxes affecting the highest income earners. Indeed, while top tax rates were equal to or above 70% in half of the countries in the mid-1970s, this rate has been halved in many countries by 2013."

"This article assesses various underlying driving factors for the evolution of household earnings inequality for 23 OECD countries from the mid-1980s to the mid-2000s. There are a number of factors at play. Some are related to labour market trends – increasing dispersion of individual wages and changes in men's and women's employment rates. Others relate to shifts in household structures and family formation – more single-headed households and increased earnings correlation among partners in couples. The contribution of each of these factors is estimated using a semi parametric decomposition technique. The results reveal that marital sorting and household structure changes contributed, albeit moderately, to increasing household earnings inequality, while rising women's employment exerted a sizable equalising effect. However, changes in labour market factors, in particular increases in men's earnings disparities, were identified as the main driver of household earnings inequality, contributing between one-third and one-half to the overall increase in most countries. Sensitivity analysis applying a reversedorder decomposition suggests that these results are robust."

"This paper examines the distributive impact of economic globalisation, technological progress and changes in labour market policies, regulations and institutions in OECD countries over the past quarter century, up to the Great Recession. It identifies the relevant pathways between macro-economic developments and earnings inequality among the whole working-age population by accounting for both changes in wage dispersion among workers and changes in earnings gaps between the employed and non-employed. The results suggest that technological progress is a key driver behind the upward trend of earnings inequality; it transmitted inequality mainly through raising wage dispersion. Economic globalisation, in terms of both rapidly rising trade and financial integration, appears overall distributional neutral once other factors, in particular changes in policies and institutions, are also controlled for. Regulatory reforms that aimed at promoting growth and productivity appeared to exert contrasting effects: they tended to close the gap between employed and non-employed, by increasing job opportunities but at the same time also contributed to greater wage inequality. Finally, the growth in the supply of skilled workers is an important equalizing factor contributing not only to reduce wage dispersion among workers but also to higher employment rates. Up-skilling provided a sizable counterweight to the increase in earnings inequality resulting from technological progress, pressure from globalisation and institutional changes."

"This article assesses various underlying driving factors for the evolution of household earnings inequality or 23 OECD countries from the mid-1980s to the mid-2000s. There are a number of factors at play. Some are related to labour market trends – increasing dispersion of individual wages and changes in men's and women's employment rates. Others relate to shifts in household structures and family formation – more single-headed households and increased earnings correlation among partners in couples. The contribution of each of these factors is estimated using a semi parametric decomposition technique. The results reveal that marital sorting and household structure changes contributed, albeit moderately, to increasing household earnings inequality, while rising women's employment exerted a sizable equalising effect. However, changes in labour market factors, in particular increases in men's earnings disparities, were identified as the main driver of household earnings inequality, contributing between one-third and one-half to the overall increase in most countries. Sensitivity analysis applying a reversed-order decomposition suggests that these results are robust."

"This paper reviews many of the unique contributions of LIS in the field of empirical comparative analysis of income inequality and poverty over the past two decades, as a complement to Atkinson's article in this issue. It presents an account of poverty and inequality research based on LIS as expressed in its numerous working papers. More substantively, this paper analyses the most recent basic indicators available through LIS to juxtapose international trends in inequality and poverty and shows that in most nations these trends are not the same. In closing it discusses a few of the main challenges for the future development of microdata poverty and inequality analysis. In particular, this paper makes use of the LIS ‘Key Figures' data which are directly available to any and all users just by clicking on the LIS website (http://www.lisproject.org/keyfigures.htm)."