Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/250348 
Year of Publication: 
2020
Series/Report no.: 
Documento de Trabajo No. 259
Publisher: 
Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Centro de Estudios Distributivos, Laborales y Sociales (CEDLAS), La Plata
Abstract: 
We show that measures of inequality of opportunity (IOP) fully consistent with Roemer (1998)'s IOP theory can be straightforwardly estimated by adopting a machine learning approach, and apply our novel method to analyse the development of IOP in Germany during the last three decades. Hereby, we take advantage of information contained in 25 waves of the Socio-Economic Panel. Our analysis shows that in Germany IOP declined immediately after reunification, increased in the first decade of the century, and slightly declined again after 2010. Over the entire period, at the top of the distribution we always find individuals that resided in West-Germany before the fall of the Berlin Wall, whose fathers had a high occupational position, and whose mothers had a high educational degree. East-German residents in 1989, with low educated parents, persistently qualify at the bottom.
Subjects: 
Inequality
Opportunity
SOEP
Germany
JEL: 
D63
D30
D31
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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