Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/34906 
Year of Publication: 
2008
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 3492
Publisher: 
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
This paper analyses the contribution of capital income to income inequality in a cross-national comparison. Using micro-data from the Cross-National Equivalent File (CNEF) for three prominent panel studies, namely the BHPS for Great Britain, the SOEP for West Germany, and the PSID for the USA, a factor decomposition method described by Shorrocks (1982) is applied. The factor decomposition of disposable income into single income components shows that capital income is exceedingly volatile and its share in disposable income has risen in recent years. Moreover, capital income makes a disproportionately high contribution to overall inequality in relation to its share in disposable income. This applies to Germany and the USA in particular. Thus capital income accounts for a large part of disparity in all three countries.
Subjects: 
Inequality
capital income
factor decomposition
CNEF
JEL: 
D33
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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