Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/49426 
Year of Publication: 
2010
Series/Report no.: 
DIW Discussion Papers No. 1036
Publisher: 
Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung (DIW), Berlin
Abstract: 
We suggest to use Internet car sale price advertisements for measuring economic inequality between and within German regions. Our estimates of regional income levels and Gini indices based on advertisements are highly, positively correlated with the official figures. This implies that the observed car prices can serve as a reasonably good proxy for income levels. In contrast to the traditional measures, our data can be fast and inexpensively retrieved from the web, and more importantly allow to estimate Gini indices at the NUTS2 level-something that never has been done before. Our approach to measuring regional inequality is a useful alternative source of information that could complement officially available measures.
Subjects: 
Car price advertisements
economic inequality
German NUTS1 and NUTS regions
Gini index
Internet
JEL: 
C21
O47
R11
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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