On the magnitude of income mobility in Germany

Abstract

This paper documents the magnitude of income mobility in Germany and its distribution across different income positions, using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel. The suggested graphical approach makes it straightforward to identify the portions of the distribution that have the largest impact on aggregate indices a la Fields and Ok, and hence offers a starting point to help account for income mobility levels. It appears that most of the contribution to mobility is made by the poorest 10% of the initial distribution. Average relative income changes are much lower and generally constant for the rest of the population.Income mobility ; Non-parametric regression