Category Archives: Empirie

Germany – Chartbook of Economic Inequality

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Max Roser gives an “Overview of Trends of Economic Inequality in Germany“. This is his summarizing interpretation of the data, see also his wonderful chart.

“Has the dispersion of earnings been increasing in recent decades? – Yes, top decile has risen from 150 per cent of median in 1950s to 190 per cent at end of 2000s.
Has overall inequality increased in recent years? – Yes, the Gini coefficient in 2010 was 3 percentage points higher than in 1998.
Have there been periods when overall inequality fell for a sustained period? – Overall inequality (and poverty) fell over the 1960s and 1970s.
Has poverty been falling or rising in recent decades? – Poverty rate increased from 10 per cent to 15 per cent between 1998 and 2010.
Has there been a U-pattern for top income shares over time? – No, top gross income shares were relatively

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Jeffrey Pfeffer: “Why powerful people are rarely punished appropriately”

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Interesting arcticle by Jeffrey Pfeffer: “Why powerful people are rarely punished appropriately.”

“Powerful executives and public figures often face surprisingly few consequences from actions that can cost companies billions of dollars and thousands of employees their jobs. One study of directors found that people who had served on the boards of banks that required government assistance during the financial crisis confronted turnover imperceptibly higher than peers who had served on banks that had weathered the financial storm in better shape.” (Source: http://jeffreypfeffer.com/2015/02/powerful-people-rarely-punished-appropriately/)

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Union membership has a positive effect on life satisfaction in the United States

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“Our empirical findings confirm our theoretical expectations. Using data from five waves of the World Values Survey, we uncover evidence that union members are more satisfied with their lives than those who are not members and that the substantive effect of union membership on life satisfaction is large and rivals other common predictors of quality of life. Moreover, union membership boosts life satisfaction across demographic groups regardless if someone is rich or poor, male or female, young or old, or has a high or low level of education” (Flavin/Shufeldt 2014: 11).

The (significant) effect is remarkable: +.12 on a life satisfaction scale from 1 to 10 (highest satisfaction). The effect of being married is +.46. (Self-reported Health: +.58; unemployed: -.27; retired: +.29; church attendance: +.07 ; for these results of a OLS regression analysis cf. p. 18, table 1). The explanation of the authors, why there is a positive effect, … Mehr lesen...