Measuring State Dependence in Individual Poverty Status: Are there Feedback Effects to Employment Decisions and Household Composition?

Using a sample of prime-aged men from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP), this paper examines the effects of past poverty experience on future poverty status, future employment status and household composition. The empirical results suggest that even after controlling for observed and unobserved characteristics, past poverty experience increases the poverty risk of future periods. Moreover, there is evidence that experiencing poverty has a negative effect on future employment behaviour and on household cohesion. Apart from its economic significance, the existence of such feedback effects is interesting from an econometric point of view, as they represent a violation of the strict exogeneity assumption, which is usually invoked in estimating dynamic qualitative response models with unobserved heterogeneity.Poverty persistence; Dynamic binary response models; Correlated random effects; Initital conditions; Strict exogeneity

Unemployment Persistence: Is There Evidence for Stigma Effects?

We present evidence for a highly significant interaction between state dependence in individual unemployment risk and the business cycle. The disadvantage from having been unemployed in the previous period is smaller in times of relatively high unemployment and larger in times of low unemployment. This is consistent with the existence of stigma effects in the sense that unemployed individuals face difficulties finding a new job because employers interpret unemployment as a negative signal and do so especially when it is easier to find jobs, i.e. when unemployment is low. --Unemployment persistence,state dependence,human capital depreciation,stigma effects,scarring

Understanding Rising Income Inequality in Germany

We examine the causes for rising income inequality in Europe’s most populous economy. From 2000 to 2006, Germany experienced an unprecedented rise in net equivalized income inequality and poverty. At the same time, unemployment rose to record levels and there was evidence for a widening distribution of labour market returns, as well as that of other market incomes. Other factors that possibly contributed to the rise in income inequality were changes in the tax system, changes in the household structure (in particular the rising share of single parent households), and changes in other socio-economic characteristics (e.g. age or education). We address the question of which factors were the main drivers of the observed inequality increase. Our results suggest that most of the increase can be explained by both changes in employment outcomes and in market returns, and, to a similar extent, by changes in the tax system. Changes in household structures and other household characteristics seem to have played a much smaller role. Put into an international perspective, our results suggest that rising income inequality in non-Anglo-Saxon countries is the likely result of both increasing inequality in market returns and increasing inequality in employment outcomes, as well as of idiosyncratic changes such as tax reforms.unemployment, poverty, income inequality, kernel density estimation

A New Approach to Testing Marginal Productivity Theory

We address the long standing question of whether production factors are paid their marginal products. We propose a new approach that circumvents the need to specify production functions and to compare marginal products to factor payments. Our approach is based on a simple equation that directly relates firms' profits to discrepancies between factor payments and marginal products. Our empirical application using data on manufacturing firms suggests that capital receives more than its marginal product, intermediate inputs receive less, and labor receives about its marginal product. Although there are differences with respect to firm size, deviations from marginal productivity theory generally seem limited. Our results have important implications for the distribution of income, the presence of optimizing behavior, and the existence of market power.marginal productivity theory, distribution of income, robust statistics

Accounting for Poverty Differences between the United States, Great Britain, and Germany

We propose a framework for comparing the relationship between poverty and personal characteristics across countries (or across years), and use it to compare levels and patterns of relative poverty in the USA, Great Britain and Germany during the 1990s. The higher aggregate poverty rates in the USA and in Britain relative to Germany were mostly accounted for by higher poverty rates conditional on characteristics, which were only partly offset by a more favourable distribution of poverty-relevant characteristics, in particular higher employment rates.Poverty, Singh-Maddala Distribution

Estimation of Generalized Entropy and Atkinson Inequality Indices from Complex Survey Data

Applying a method suggested by Woodruff (1971), we derive the sampling variances of Generalized Entropy and Atkinson inequality indices when estimated from complex survey data. It turns out that this method also greatly simplifies the calculations for the i.i.d. case when compared to previous derivations in the literature. Both cases are illustrated with examples from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study and the British Household Panel Survey.Inequality, Statistical Inference, Complex Surveys

Unemployment Duration and the Length of Entitlement Periods for Unemployment Benefits: Do the IAB Employment Subsample and the German Socio-Economic Panel Yield the Same Results?

We compare information on the length of unemployment spells contained in the IAB employment subsample (IABS) and in the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP). Due to the lack of information on registered unemployment in the IABS, we use two proxies of unemployment in the IABS as introduced by Fitzenberger/Wilke (2004). The first proxy comprises all periods of nonemployment after an employment spell which contain at least one period with unemployment compensation transfers. The second proxy includes all episodes between two employment spells during which an individual continuously received unemployment benefits. Estimation of standard duration models indicates that conclusions drawn from the IABS and the GSOEP differ in many cases. While the GSOEP suggests that the hazard rate has a maximum at about 12 months of nemployment, the IABS results suggest that this maximum is at about 20 months. Contrary to our GSOEP results and contrary to many results based on the GSOEP found in the literature, we find a statistically significant association between longer maximum entitlement periods of unemployment benefits (?Arbeitslosengeld?) and longer unemployment durations for men in the IABS. The results for women do not show such clear patterns. The large sample size of the IABS also allows one to trace out statistically significant effects of characteristics such as regional and industry indicators, which is generally not possible in the relatively small GSOEP. --unemployment duration,duration analysis,unemployment insurance,administrative data

The Covariance Structure of East and West German Incomes and its Implications for the Persistence of Poverty and Inequality

Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP), this paper analyzes the dynamics of equivalent income in Germany in the eighties and nineties. Special emphasis is given to the separation of permanent and transitory components, the persistence of transitory shocks and their implications for the persistence of poverty and income inequality. The results suggest that 52 to 69 percent of income inequality in West Germany were due to permanent differences between individuals and that poor individuals stayed in poverty for two years on average. In East Germany, the contribution of the permanent component to overall income inequality increased from 20 percent in 1990 to over 70 percent in 1998 and the persistence of poverty rose accordingly. The paper also looks at the special situation of population subgroups such as lone mothers, "double income no kids" households, couples with children and pensioners.Covariance structure, Poverty, Inequality, Mobility

Which Program for Whom? Evidence on the Comparative Effectiveness of Public Sponsored Training Programs in Germany

We use a new and exceptionally rich administrative data set for Germany to evaluate the employment effects of a variety of public sponsored training programs in the early 2000s. Building on the work of Sianesi (2003, 2004), we employ propensity score matching methods in a dynamic, multiple treatment framework in order to address program heterogeneity and dynamic selection into programs. Our results suggest that in West Germany both short-term and medium-term programs show considerable employment effects for certain population subgroups but in some cases the effects are zero in the medium run. Short-term programs are surprisingly effective when compared to the traditional and more expensive longer-term programs. With a few exceptions, we find little evidence for significant positive treatment effects in East Germany. There is some evidence that the employment effects decline for older workers and for low? skilled workers. --evaluation,multiple treatments,dynamic treatment effects,local linear matching,active labor market programs,administrative data