CONSOLIDATING THE EVIDENCE ON INCOME MOBILITY IN THE WESTERN STATES OF GERMANY AND THE UNITED STATES FROM 1984 TO 2006 |
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| Authors: | GULGUN BAYAZ‐OZTURK RICHARD V. BURKHAUSER KENNETH A. COUCH |
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| Affiliation: | 1. Bayaz‐Ozturk: Post‐Doctoral Fellow, CUNY, Hunter College, School of Public Health, New York, NY. Phone 212‐396‐7766, Fax 212‐396‐7644, E‐mail gbayazoz@hunter.cuny.edu;2. Burkhauser: Professor, Department of Policy Analysis and Management, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY;3. Professorial Research Fellow, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, Melbourne University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Phone 607‐255‐2097, Fax 607‐255‐4071, E‐mail rvb1@cornell.edu;4. Couch: Professor, Department of Economics, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT. Phone 860‐486‐4570, Fax 860‐486‐4463, E‐mail Kenneth.Couch@UConn.edu |
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| Abstract: | The cross‐national intragenerational literature has often analyzed income mobility within short time periods over which mobility might reasonably be thought of as invariant. Here, we argue that a great social transformation—German reunification—abruptly and permanently altered mobility. Using standard measures (with panel data for the western states of Germany and the United States) over the period 1984–2006, we find the conventional result that income mobility is greater in Germany. But when we cut the data into 5‐year windows, we find that income mobility declines significantly over the years immediately following reunification in Germany but not in the United States, using both measures. (JEL J1, J6) |
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