IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/revinw/v59y2013i4p689-727.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Factor Components of Inequality: A Cross-Country Study

Author

Listed:
  • Cecilia García-Peñalosa
  • Elsa Orgiazzi

Abstract

This paper uses data from the Luxembourg Income Study to examine some of the forces that have driven changes in household income inequality over the last three decades of the twentieth century. We decompose inequality for six countries (Canada, Germany, Norway, Sweden, the U.K., and the U.S.) into the three sources of market income (earnings, property income, and income from self-employment) and taxes and transfers. Our findings indicate that although changes in the distribution of earnings are an important force behind recent trends, they are not the only one. Greater earnings dispersion has in some cases been accompanied by a reduction in the share of earnings which dampened its impact on overall household income inequality. In some countries the contribution of self-employment income to inequality has been on the rise, while in others, increases in inequality in capital income account for a substantial fraction of the observed distributional changes.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Cecilia García-Peñalosa & Elsa Orgiazzi, 2013. "Factor Components of Inequality: A Cross-Country Study," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 59(4), pages 689-727, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:revinw:v:59:y:2013:i:4:p:689-727
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/roiw.12054
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Daron Acemoglu, 2003. "Cross-Country Inequality Trends," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 113(485), pages 121-149, February.
    2. Machin, Stephen, 1996. "Wage Inequality in the UK," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 12(1), pages 47-64, Spring.
    3. Markus Jäntti & Stephen Jenkins, 2010. "The impact of macroeconomic conditions on income inequality," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 8(2), pages 221-240, June.
    4. Karoly, Lynn A, 1992. "Changes in the Distribution of Individual Earnings in the United States: 1967-1986," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 74(1), pages 107-115, February.
    5. Paul van den Noord & Chistopher Heady, 2001. "Surveillance of Tax Policies: A Synthesis of Findings in Economic Surveys," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 303, OECD Publishing.
    6. Stephen Jenkins & Philippe Kerm, 2005. "Accounting for income distribution trends: A density function decomposition approach," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 3(1), pages 43-61, April.
    7. Cecilia García-Peñalosa & Elsa Orgiazzi, 2013. "Factor Components of Inequality: A Cross-Country Study," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 59(4), pages 689-727, December.
    8. Brian Nolan, 1987. "Cyclical Fluctuations In Factor Shares And The Size Distribution Of Income," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 33(2), pages 193-210, June.
    9. Daniele Checchi & Cecilia García‐Peñalosa, 2010. "Labour Market Institutions and the Personal Distribution of Income in the OECD," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 77(307), pages 413-450, July.
    10. Roine, Jesper & Waldenström, Daniel, 2005. "Top Incomes in Sweden over the Twentieth Century," SSE/EFI Working Paper Series in Economics and Finance 602, Stockholm School of Economics.
    11. Timothy Smeeding & Andrea Brandolini, 2007. "Inequality Patterns in Western-Type Democracies: Cross-Country Differences and Time Changes," LIS Working papers 458, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    12. Richard V. Burkhauser & Shuaizhang Feng & Stephen P. Jenkins, 2009. "Using The P90/P10 Index To Measure U.S. Inequality Trends With Current Population Survey Data: A View From Inside The Census Bureau Vaults," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 55(1), pages 166-185, March.
    13. Cowell, Frank A & Jenkins, Stephen P, 1995. "How Much Inequality Can We Explain? A Methodology and an Application to the United States," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 105(429), pages 421-430, March.
    14. Rolf Aaberge & Tom Wennemo & Anders Bjorklund & Markus Jantti & Peder J. Pedersen & Nina Smith, 2000. "Unemployment Shocks and Income Distribution: How did the Nordic Countries Fare during their Crises?," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 102(1), pages 77-99, March.
    15. Atkinson, A B, 1997. "Bringing Income Distribution in from the Cold," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 107(441), pages 297-321, March.
    16. Douglas Gollin, 2002. "Getting Income Shares Right," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(2), pages 458-474, April.
    17. Gary S. Fields, 1979. "Income Inequality In Urban Colombia: A Decomposition Analysis," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 25(3), pages 327-341, September.
    18. repec:bla:revinw:v:25:y:1979:i:3:p:327-41 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Anthony Atkinson & Thomas Piketty, 2010. "Top Incomes : A Global Perspective," PSE-Ecole d'économie de Paris (Postprint) halshs-00754875, HAL.
    20. Peter Gottschalk & Timothy M. Smeeding, 1997. "Cross-National Comparisons of Earnings and Income Inequality," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 35(2), pages 633-687, June.
    21. Nripesh Podder, 1993. "The Disaggregation Of The Gin1 Coefficient By Factor Components And Its Applications To Australia," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 39(1), pages 51-61, March.
    22. Mookherjee, Dilip & Shorrocks, Anthony F, 1982. "A Decomposition Analysis of the Trend in UK Income Inequality," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 92(368), pages 886-902, December.
    23. Richard Burkhauser & Shuaizhang Feng & Stephen Jenkins & Jeff Larrimore, 2011. "Estimating trends in US income inequality using the Current Population Survey: the importance of controlling for censoring," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 9(3), pages 393-415, September.
    24. Anthony Atkinson & Thomas Piketty, 2007. "Top incomes over the twentieth century: A contrast between continental european and english-speaking countries," Post-Print halshs-00754859, HAL.
    25. Magnus Gustavsson, 2008. "A New Picture Of Swedish Earnings Inequality: Persistent And Transitory Components, 1960–1990," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 54(3), pages 324-349, September.
    26. Graham Pyatt & Chau-nan Chen & John Fei, 1980. "The Distribution of Income by Factor Components," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 95(3), pages 451-473.
    27. Thomas Lemieux, 2008. "The changing nature of wage inequality," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 21(1), pages 21-48, January.
    28. Shorrocks, A F, 1982. "Inequality Decomposition by Factor Components," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(1), pages 193-211, January.
    29. Garner, Thesia I, 1993. "Consumer Expenditures and Inequality: An Analysis Based on Decomposition of the Gini Coefficient," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 75(1), pages 134-138, February.
    30. Peter Gottschalk & Sheldon Danziger, 2005. "Inequality Of Wage Rates, Earnings And Family Income In The United States, 1975–2002," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 51(2), pages 231-254, June.
    31. Bourguignon, Francois, 1979. "Decomposable Income Inequality Measures," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 47(4), pages 901-920, July.
    32. Erik Fjærli & Rolf Aaberge, 2000. "Tax Reforms, Dividend Policy and Trends in Income Inequality Empirical Evidence based on Norwegian Data," Discussion Papers 284, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
    33. repec:bla:econom:v:62:y:1995:i:245:p:29-63 is not listed on IDEAS
    34. Martin FOURNIER, 2001. "Inequality decomposition by factor component : a “rank-correlation” approach illustrated on the Taiwanese case," Discussion Papers (REL - Recherches Economiques de Louvain) 2001042, Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES).
    35. Evans, David S & Leighton, Linda S, 1989. "Some Empirical Aspects of Entrepreneurship," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(3), pages 519-535, June.
    36. Shorrocks, A F, 1975. "The Age-Wealth Relationship: A Cross-Section and Cohort Analysis," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 57(2), pages 155-163, May.
    37. Stephen Machin & John Van Reenen, 1998. "Technology and Changes in Skill Structure: Evidence from Seven OECD Countries," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(4), pages 1215-1244.
    38. John C. H. Fei & Gustav Ranis & Shirley W. Y. Kuo, 1978. "Growth and the Family Distribution of Income by Factor Components," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 92(1), pages 17-53.
    39. repec:bla:econom:v:63:y:1996:i:250:p:s1-27 is not listed on IDEAS
    40. Burtless, Gary, 1999. "Effects of growing wage disparities and changing family composition on the U.S. income distribution," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 43(4-6), pages 853-865, April.
    41. Stephane Mussard, 2004. "The bidimensional decomposition of the Gini ratio. A case study: Italy," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(8), pages 503-505.
    42. Yves Flückiger & Jacques Silber, 1995. "Income Inequality Decomposition by Income Source and the Breakdown of Inequality Differences Between Two Population Subgroups," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 131(IV), pages 599-615, December.
    43. Daniele Checchi & Cecilia García-Peñalosa, 2008. "Labour market institutions and income inequality [‘Globalisation and the great U-turn: Income inequality trends in 16 OECD countries’]," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 23(56), pages 602-649.
    44. repec:bla:revinw:v:45:y:1999:i:2:p:263-74 is not listed on IDEAS
    45. Jesper Drescher, 1999. "Income Inequality Decomposition by Income Source and by Population Subgroups: A Theoretical Overview and the Empirical Case of Denmark," LIS Working papers 209, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    46. Andrea Brandolini & Anthony B. Atkinson, 2001. "Promise and Pitfalls in the Use of "Secondary" Data-Sets: Income Inequality in OECD Countries As a Case Study," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 39(3), pages 771-799, September.
    47. Stephen P. Jenkins, 2009. "Distributionally‐Sensitive Inequality Indices And The Gb2 Income Distribution," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 55(2), pages 392-398, June.
    48. Lerman, Robert I & Yitzhaki, Shlomo, 1985. "Income Inequality Effects by Income," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 67(1), pages 151-156, February.
    49. Rolf Aaberge & Anthony B. Atkinson, 2008. "Top Incomes in Norway," Discussion Papers 552, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
    50. A. B. Atkinson, 2007. "The Long Run Earnings Distribution In Five Countries: “Remarkable Stability,” U, V Or W?," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 53(1), pages 1-24, March.
    51. Atkinson, A B, 2008. "The Changing Distribution of Earnings in OECD Countries," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199532438.
    52. Gottschalk,Peter & Gustafsson,Bjorn A. & Palmer,Edward E. (ed.), 1997. "Changing Patterns in the Distribution of Economic Welfare," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521562621, September.
    53. Atkinson, A. B. & Piketty, Thomas (ed.), 2007. "Top Incomes Over the Twentieth Century: A Contrast Between Continental European and English-Speaking Countries," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199286881.
    54. Michele Giammatteo, 2007. "The bidimensional decomposition of inequality: A nested Theil approach," LIS Working papers 466, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Cecilia Garcia Peñalosa & Orgiazzi, E., 2011. "GINI DP 12: Factor Components of Inequality. A Cross-Country Study," GINI Discussion Papers 12, AIAS, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies.
    2. Cecilia Garc a-Pe alosa & Richard Breen & Elsa Orgiazzi, 2008. "Factor Components of Inequality: Cross-Country Differences and Time Changes," LIS Working papers 503, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    3. Daniele Checchi & Cecilia García-Peñalosa & Lara Vivian, 2016. "Are changes in the dispersion of hours worked a cause of increased earnings inequality?," IZA Journal of European Labor Studies, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 5(1), pages 1-34, December.
    4. Salverda, Wiemer & Checchi, Daniele, 2014. "Labour-Market Institutions and the Dispersion of Wage Earnings," IZA Discussion Papers 8220, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Richard Burkhauser & Shuaizhang Feng & Stephen Jenkins & Jeff Larrimore, 2011. "Estimating trends in US income inequality using the Current Population Survey: the importance of controlling for censoring," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 9(3), pages 393-415, September.
    6. Richard Burkhauser & Shuaizhang Feng & Stephen Jenkins & Jeff Larrimore, 2009. "Recent Trends in Top Income Shares in the USA: Reconciling Estimates from March CPS and IRS Tax Return Data," Working Papers 09-26, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    7. Jurkatis, Simon & Strehl, Wolfgang, 2014. "Gini decompositions and Gini elasticities: On measuring the importance of income sources and population subgroups for income inequality," Discussion Papers 2014/22, Free University Berlin, School of Business & Economics.
    8. Daniele Checchi & Cecilia García‐Peñalosa, 2010. "Labour Market Institutions and the Personal Distribution of Income in the OECD," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 77(307), pages 413-450, July.
    9. Brewer, Mike & Wren-Lewis, Liam, 2012. "Accounting for changes in income inequality: decomposition analyses for Great Britain, 1968-2009," ISER Working Paper Series 2012-17, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    10. Stéphane Mussard & Michel Terraza, 2009. "Décompositions des mesures d'inégalité : le cas des coefficients de Gini et d'entropie," Recherches économiques de Louvain, De Boeck Université, vol. 75(2), pages 151-181.
    11. Salvatore Morelli & Timothy Smeeding & Jeffrey Thompson, 2014. "Post-1970 Trends in Within-Country Inequality and Poverty: Rich and Middle Income Countries," CSEF Working Papers 356, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.
    12. Simon Jurkatis, "undated". "Dos and Don'ts of Gini Decompositions," BDPEMS Working Papers 2013003, Berlin School of Economics.
    13. Michele Giammatteo, 2007. "The bidimensional decomposition of inequality: A nested Theil approach," LIS Working papers 466, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    14. Magne Mogstad, 2007. "Measuring Income Inequality under Restricted Interpersonal Comparability," Discussion Papers 498, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
    15. Stephen P. Jenkins & John Micklewright, 2007. "New Directions in the Analysis of Inequality and Poverty," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 700, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    16. Daniele Checchi & Cecilia García-Peñalosa, 2008. "Labour market institutions and income inequality [‘Globalisation and the great U-turn: Income inequality trends in 16 OECD countries’]," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 23(56), pages 602-649.
    17. Stephen P. Jenkins & Richard V. Burkhauser & Shuaizhang Feng & Jeff Larrimore, 2011. "Measuring inequality using censored data: a multiple‐imputation approach to estimation and inference," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 174(1), pages 63-81, January.
    18. Rolf Aaberge & François Bourguignon & Andrea Brandolini & Francisco H. G. Ferreira & Janet C. Gornick & John Hills & Markus Jäntti & Stephen P. Jenkins & Eric Marlier & John Micklewright & Brian Nolan, 2017. "Tony Atkinson and his Legacy," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 63(3), pages 411-444, September.
    19. Iryna Kyzyma & Alessio Fusco & Philippe Van Kerm, 2022. "Distributional Change: Assessing the Contribution of Household Income Sources," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 84(1), pages 158-184, February.
    20. Fräßdorf, Anna & Grabka, Markus M. & Schwarze, Johannes, 2008. "The Impact of Household Capital Income on Income Inequality: A Factor Decomposition Analysis for Great Britain, Germany and the USA," IZA Discussion Papers 3492, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • D33 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Factor Income Distribution

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:revinw:v:59:y:2013:i:4:p:689-727. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iariwea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.