A Multifaceted Approach to Earnings Mobility Comparisons
Mobility and Inequality Trends
ISBN: 978-1-80382-902-9, eISBN: 978-1-80382-901-2
Publication date: 25 January 2023
Abstract
Economic mobility means different things to different people, but four major classes of mobility measures have been identified in the literature: positional, directional, mobility as an equaliser of long-term earnings, and earnings risk (or flux). We illustrate some advantages of a multifaceted approach by comparing German and American earnings mobility using multiple indices from each of the four major classes for three panels of 10-year intervals. We anticipate and confirm that due to extensive differences in the German and American labour markets and in other social institutions that influence labour market outcomes, each country dominates in one facet of mobility but not in the others. Thus, a multifaceted approach contributes to a better understanding of the strengths and weakness of the two systems.
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Acknowledgements
Acknowledgements
We acknowledge the helpful comments and suggestions of Thesia Garner and Gary Fields, as well as participants at the 93rd annual conference of the Western Economic Association International (Vancouver), the 88th annual meeting of the Southern Economic Association (Washington), and the 8th meeting of the Society for the Study of Economic Inequality (Paris). Juan Gabriel Rodríguez acknowledges financial support of the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (Spain) under project PID2019-104619RB-C42 and Comunidad de Madrid (Spain) under project H2019/HUM-5793-OPINBI-CM. Responsibility for any error is the authors’ alone.
Citation
Bishop, J.A., Rodríguez, J.G. and Zeager, L.A. (2023), "A Multifaceted Approach to Earnings Mobility Comparisons", Bandyopadhyay, S. and Rodríguez, J.G. (Ed.) Mobility and Inequality Trends (Research on Economic Inequality, Vol. 30), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 165-184. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1049-258520230000030007
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2023 John A. Bishop, Juan Gabriel Rodríguez and Lester A. Zeager