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2017 | OriginalPaper | Buchkapitel

Inequality in Germany and the US: An Introductory Note

verfasst von : Bettina Bökemeier

Erschienen in: Inequality and Finance in Macrodynamics

Verlag: Springer International Publishing

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Abstract

This introduction addresses various aspects of income and wealth inequality and their developments in Germany and the United States. In both countries the distribution of income and wealth has become more unequal during the past decades. We observe some changes in the figures especially for Germany indicating a more unequal situation at present. This holds for both, the income and the wealth inequality measures. Even though redistribution instruments reduce the Gini coefficient for the disposable income compared to the market outcome, there still is an almost steady increasing trend since the middle of the 1980s. Regarding wealth inequality, the ratio of mean to median net wealth reveals values above the OECD average for Germany and the United States. Both, income and wealth inequality are, however, more pronounced in the US.

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Fußnoten
1
There is, however, a close pattern among wealth and income.
 
2
There are many ways for calculation and sources for Gini coefficients, see for instance World Bank (2014). Here, the data has been taken from OECD (2016a) for comparison.
 
3
About 60% for the 30 years from 1976 to 2007, cf. Atkinson et al. (2011, p8f.).
 
4
Piketty and Zucman (2014, p.17) especially look at France, Britain an Sweden, but argue that the pattern is rather typical for Europe.
 
5
All wealth data has been taken from OECD (2016b). All values refer to the most recent available data (2010) and current prices of national currency (GER= €, USA= US$).
 
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Metadaten
Titel
Inequality in Germany and the US: An Introductory Note
verfasst von
Bettina Bökemeier
Copyright-Jahr
2017
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-54690-2_1