Does Size Matter? The Impact of Changes in Household Structure on Income Distribution in Germany

Income inequality in Germany has been continuously increasing during the past 20 years. In general, this is understood as an increase in inequality of wages due to changes in bargaining power of employees. However, the role of changing household structure is widely neglected. Societal trends like a decline in birth rate and an increase in the risk of divorce affect per capita incomes, which has repercussions for the income distribution even if wages remain constant. The aim of this paper is to quantify the proportion of changing household structures in the increase in inequality. We find that the rise in inequality was indeed more due to changes of household structure and employment behavior rather than changes in wages. Moreover, a large part of this increase is compensated by the welfare state.income distribution, demography, household size, decomposition, Germany

Does Size Matter? The Impact of Changes in Household Structure on Income Distribution in Germany

In Germany, two observations can be made over the past 20 years: First, income inequality has been constantly increasing while, second, the average household size has been declining dramatically. The analysis of income distribution relies on equivalence-weighted incomes which take into account household size. Therefore, there is an obvious link between these two developments. The aim of the paper is to quantify how the trend towards smaller households has influenced the change in income distribution. In order to do so, we are using a decomposition of changes in inequality measures over time allowing for a separation between wage and demographic effects respectively. We propose similar decompositions for the change in poverty and richness as well and compare them with results that were obtained by a re-weighting procedure. Our results show that the income gap would also have increased without the demographic trend. But its level would be lower than it actually is. In addition, the demographic effect turns out to be larger for incomes before tax and benefits.Germany, decomposition, household size, demography, income distribution

High-dimensional experiments for the downward continuation using the LRFMP algorithm

Time-dependent gravity data from satellite missions like GRACE-FO reveal mass redistribution in the system Earth at various time scales: long-term climate change signals, inter-annual phenomena like El Nino, seasonal mass transports and transients, e. g. due to earthquakes. For this contemporary issue, a classical inverse problem has to be considered: the gravitational potential has to be modelled on the Earth's surface from measurements in space. This is also known as the downward continuation problem. Thus, it is important to further develop current mathematical methods for such inverse problems. For this, the (Learning) Inverse Problem Matching Pursuits ((L)IPMPs) have been developed within the last decade. Their unique feature is the combination of local as well as global trial functions in the approximative solution of an inverse problem such as the downward continuation of the gravitational potential. In this way, they harmonize the ideas of a traditional spherical harmonic ansatz and the radial basis function approach. Previous publications on these methods showed proofs of concept. Here, we consider the methods for high-dimensional experiments settings with more than 500 000 grid points which yields a resolution of 20 km at best on a realistic satellite geometry. We also explain the changes in the methods that had to be done to work with such a large amount of data. The corresponding code (updated for big data use) is available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8223771 under the licence CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 Germany

Mehr Ungleichheit durch kleinere Haushalte? Der Einfluss von Veränderungen der Haushaltsstruktur auf die Einkommensverteilung in Deutschland

Da die Analyse von Einkommensverteilungen auf äquivalenzgewichteten Einkommen beruht, ist die Entwicklung der Einkommensungleichheit nicht nur Ausdruck für Veränderungen in der Entlohnungsstruktur, sondern auch für Veränderungen von Haushaltsgröße und -zusammensetzung. In den letzten 15 bis 20 Jahren ist die Einkommensungleichheit in Deutschland kontinuierlich gestiegen, während sich gleichzeitig die durchschnittliche Haushaltsgröße deutlich verringert hat. Das Ziel des vorliegenden Beitrags besteht darin, den Effekt der demografischen Entwicklung auf die Einkommensungleichheit zu quantifizieren. Es zeigt sich, dass die Ungleichheit auch ohne den demografischen Trend zugenommen hätte. Ihr Niveau wäre allerdings deutlich geringer ausgefallen als es sich tatsächlich darstellt.Demografie, Einkommensungleichheit, Dekomposition, Haushaltsstrukturen, SOEP

Demografie und Ungleichheit: der Einfluss von Veränderungen der Haushaltsstruktur auf die Einkommensverteilung in Deutschland

In Germany, two observations can be tracked over the past 15 to 20 years: First, income inequality has constantly increased while, second, the average household size has been declining dramatically. The analysis of income distribution relies on equivalence-weighted incomes, which take into account household size. Therefore, there is an obvious link between these two developments. The aim of the paper is to quantify how the trend towards smaller households has influenced the change in income inequality. It appears that inequality would also have increased without this demographic trend. But its level would be noticeably lower than it actually is.Demography, income inequality, inequality decomposition, household structure, SOEP, Germany

Bemessungsgrundlage schlägt Fünf-Stufen-Tarif: Eine Simulationsanalyse des Reformvorschlags nach Rose

Die Komplexität des deutschen Steuersystems hat in den vergangenen Jahren immer wieder Verbesserungsvorschläge hervorgerufen. In diesem Beitrag analysieren wir den von Manfred Rose vorgelegten Reformvorschlag eines Fünf-Stufen-Tarifs in Verbindung mit einer Reform der steuerlichen Bemessungsgrundlage. Unsere Simulationsergebnisse zeigen, dass die Reform mit äußerst negativen Arbeitsmarkteffekten verbunden wäre, die aus der deutlich höheren steuerlichen Belastung resultieren. Während der Fünf-Stufen-Tarif die Haushalte ceteris paribus entlasten würde, führt die Verbreiterung der Bemessungsgrundlage zu einer erheblichen Mehrbelastung. Unsere Ergebnisse zeigen, wie bedeutsam die Definition der Bemessungsgrundlage für die Effekte einer Steuerreform sein kann.Steuerreform, Steuervereinfachung, Stufentarif, Mikrosimulation, Arbeitsangebot

RoCKIn@Work: Industrial Robot Challenge

RoCKIn@Work was focused on benchmarks in the domain of industrial robots. Both task and functionality benchmarks were derived from real world applications. All of them were part of a bigger user story painting the picture of a scaled down real world factory scenario. Elements used to build the testbed were chosen from common materials in modern manufacturing environments. Networked devices, machines controllable through a central software component, were also part of the testbed and introduced a dynamic component to the task benchmarks. Strict guidelines on data logging were imposed on participating teams to ensure gathered data could be automatically evaluated. This also had the positive effect that teams were made aware of the importance of data logging, not only during a competition but also during research as useful utility in their own laboratory. Tasks and functionality benchmarks are explained in detail, starting with their use case in industry, further detailing their execution and providing information on scoring and ranking mechanisms for the specific benchmark

Einfach ist nicht immer gerecht: Eine Mikrosimulationsstudie der Kirchhof-Reform für die Einkommensteuer

In diesem Beitrag analysieren wir den aktuellen Einkommensteuervorschlag von Paul Kirchhof im Hinblick auf Zielkonflikte zwischen Steueraufkommen, Verteilungswirkungen und Effizienzgesichtspunkten. Wir kommen zu dem Ergebnis, dass der aktuelle Kirchhof-Vorschlag politisch kaum durchsetzbar sein dürfte, da von ihm problematische Auswirkungen auf Staatshaushalt und Einkommensverteilung zu erwarten sind. Bei moderaten Auswirkungen auf das Arbeitsangebot führt das Kirchhof-Konzept zu Einnahmeausfällen im Umfang von rund 20 Mrd. Euro. Außerdem entfaltet es einen nicht unerheblichen Effekt auf die Einkommensungleichheit. Trotz Verbreiterung der Bemessungsgrundlage profitieren von einem niedrigen, einheitlichen Grenzsteuersatz ausschließlich die obersten zehn Prozent der Einkommensverteilung.Einkommensungleichheit, Arbeitsangebot, Mikrosimulation, Kirchhof, Steuervereinfachung