Suchergebnisse

Over the last two decades, income inequality has increased in most developed welfare states. Therefore, redistributive policies are high on the political agenda of many countries. From a policy perspective, the correct empirical assessment of the redistributive effects of taxes and benefits is important to develop a well-designed redistributive policy mix. This thesis contributes to the understanding and measurement of redistribution by examining redistributive policies and income inequality and their interdependencies. The first empirical analysis explores the size and structure of effective redistribution in a broad sample of European welfare states. Besides answering the question of how different components of the tax and transfer system contribute to disposable income inequality, it also investigates whether the findings are sensitive to the underlying measurement method. Chapter 3 presents two detailed case studies of Germany and the United Kingdom and examines whether the structure of fiscal policies has changed over the last two decades. The analysis provides a comprehensive dynamic analysis of effective progressivity and redistribution by including all major fiscal elements: direct taxation, pay roll taxes, indirect taxes and benefits. Chapter 4 focuses on the identification of the causal effect of redistributive spending policies on income inequality by using a dynamic panel approach and some exogenous variation in social spending levels as an instrument. In contrast to the previous chapters, it explicitly discusses possible second-order effects of redistributive policies. Chapter 5 introduces the concept of inequality of opportunity instead of the traditional inequality of outcome approach. Given that previous estimates of unfair inequality could only provide lower bounds, the study suggests a new panel estimator which additionally allows identifying an upper bound of inequality of opportunity. The approach is illustrated by comparing Germany and the United States based on harmonized micro data. Overall, the book shows that tax benefit systems substantially reduce income inequality in all EU member states, with distinct redistributive capacities of different welfare state instruments. The amount of effective redistribution is significantly reduced when considering indirect taxes and second-order effects. Finally, while tax benefit systems equalize outcomes, they do not reveal a differential impact on unequal opportunities.

Call for Papers for a Special Issue of the Vienna Yearbook of Population Research. Deadline: May 31, 2024

Social and economic inequalities have been a concern in human societies throughout history. In recent years especially wealth and income inequality have been the focus of controversial public, political, and scientific debates. The present thesis seeks to contribute to the ongoing inequality debate by regarding economic inequality from a psychological point of view. Together with Detlef Fetchenhauer, Thomas Schlösser, and Daniel Ehlebracht, I experimentally investigated the psychological determinants and consequences of economic inequality in three different studies. Of the many aspects that inequality comprises, we particularly focused on the association between inequality and justice (Chapter 2 and Chapter 3) as well as its consequences for affects, emotions, and cooperation (Chapter 2 and Chapter 4). In this context, inequality as conceived in Chapter 2 might be most comparable to income inequality because it emerges as a consequence of individuals' performance in a working task. Inequality as conceived in Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 might be most comparable to wealth inequality because it is the result of a random assignment to an advantageous or disadvantageous societal position, as is inheritance. Nevertheless, all inequalities examined within this research project are closely related, as they share an economic or monetary basis. In Chapter 2, we experimentally explored the emotional and affective consequences of inequality and their association to justice perceptions. In particular, our participants had to solve effort-based tasks and were assigned to compensation systems referred to as tournament system and equality system. Whereas tournament systems evoked high outcome disparities, equality systems, as they were applied, caused equal outcome distributions. In accordance with prior research (e.g., Schlösser & Fetchenhauer, 2015), we found that the equality system was perceived to be more just than the tournament system. Yet, the effect of the system's justice on affect and emotions was found to be small and both appeared, instead, to be crucially determined by the income and the status of a participant within a given system. For instance, those that benefited from the unequal tournament system perceived the system to be unjust but reported the highest positive affect and the lowest negative affect, anger, and guilt. A possible explanation might be that—within our research paradigm—beneficiaries cannot be hold accountable for the negative consequences of the exogenously determined compensation systems which might detach their justice perceptions and affects as well as emotions. In Chapter 3, we investigated whether a person's personal sensitivity towards justice (i.e., justice sensitivity) predicts equality preferences in democratic systems. Prior research found that unequal distributions are likely to be perceived as unjust (e.g., Deutsch, 1975), hence, we assumed that persons who are truly concerned about the just treatment of others (i.e., other-sensitive persons) hold a genuine preference for equal distributions and low inequality. Persons who show the tendency to predominantly care about a just treatment for themselves (i.e., victim-sensitive persons) were instead assumed to hold no genuine distributional preferences, but rather prefer the degree of inequality within their monetary self-interest. With the help of a so-called welfare state game (e.g., Biniossek & Fetchenhauer, 2007; Lotz & Fetchenhauer, 2012), we measured equality preferences in a democratic decision-making process. Indeed, other-sensitive persons displayed a general preference for low inequality irrespective of whether they financially gained or lost out on that decision. In contrast, victim-sensitive persons preferred either low inequality or high inequality depending on whether the one or the other was in their financial interest. In Chapter 4, we finally investigated the relationship between democratically determined economic inequality and cooperation. Based on previous research which found that in particular endogenously induced inequality harms preconditions for cooperative behavior, such as trust (e.g., Greiner et al., 2012), we assumed that democratically induced inequality hampers cooperation. In accordance with this assumption, we found that groups which previously implemented high inequality through a majority choice displayed relatively low levels of cooperation compared to groups which previously implemented low inequality. In addition, we found that the mechanism driving this effect is likely based on motivated reasoning rather than based on self-selection, similarity, risk, or inequality aversion. These findings suggest that high degrees of inequality harm cooperation in democratic systems. Chapter 5 provides an integrative discussion of the presented empirical research findings, while Chapter 6 suggests possible paths for future research.

In every society, some have more income than others. In some societies, some have much more income than others. But are people that live in more equal societies happier with their life? The prevailing view is that income inequality breeds unhappiness. But does someone from Sweden really wake up in the morning to thank god
Der Beitrag Does inequality make people unhappy? erschien zuerst auf Martin Schroeder.

Call for Contributions for a Conference in Cologne on September 25–27, 2024. Deadline: February 25, 2024

"Wirtschaftseliten tragen zur gesellschaftlichen Definition sozialer Ungleichheit bei, indem sie ihre Leitbilder und Vorstellungen, z.B. über Ursachen und Lösungen sozialer Probleme, in die öffentliche Meinungsbildung einfließen lassen. Im Forschungsprojekt Wirtschaftseliten zwischen Konkurrenzdruck und gesellschaftlicher Verantwortung an der Universität Bielefeld wurden mit Hilfe von Leitfadeninterviews politische und gesellschaftliche Leitbilder von hochrangigen Führungskräften von Großunternehmen und Wirtschaftsverbänden in Deutschland untersucht. Ein Ergebnis der Interviewanalyse ist, dass Wirtschaftseliten soziale Ungleichheit als naturgegebenes, in allen Gesellschaften vorhandenes und auf ungleichen Begabungen, Leistungen und Leistungsmotivationen basierendes Phänomen definieren. Ähnliches gilt für die Ungleichheit der Geschlechter: Die geringe Anzahl von Frauen im Management beispielsweise wird von männlichen wie weiblichen Führungskräften dadurch erklärt, dass Frauen insbesondere auf Grund ihrer biologischen Disposition als Mütter weniger leistungsmotiviert seien, sich weniger führungsadäquat verhielten und häufig nicht in der Lage seien, Karriere und Familie zu verbinden. Aus den Interviewaussagen der Wirtschaftseliten kann eine durchgängig vorfindbare Leistungs- und Verantwortungsideologie herausgearbeitet werden, die auf individuellen Anstrengungen basiert und mit der teilweise auch hohe Managergehälter legitimiert werden. Gleichzeitig wird eingeräumt, dass die Chancen zur Ausbildung eigener Begabungen und die Möglichkeiten, Leistung zu bringen, in der Gesellschaft ungleich verteilt sind. An dieser Stelle sehen sie den Staat in der Verantwortung: durch die Bereitstellung von Bildungs-, Ausbildungs- und Kinderbetreuungsinfrastruktur sollen individuelle Handicaps beseitigt und unterschiedliche soziale Ausgangslagen einander angeglichen werden. Ziel ist die Herstellung von gleichen Wettbewerbsbedingungen für möglichst viele Gesellschaftsmitglieder, und dieser Wettbewerb wird als natürlich und gesellschaftlich wünschenswert angesehen." (Autorenreferat)

The book "Capital in the 21. Century" by Piketty (2014) marked the peak of attention for the topic of income inequality and spread awareness on the importance of ongoing research. During my master thesis, I had worked on decomposition methods for labor earnings. Motivated by this development in the literature and first experiences in academic research, I started working on income inequality as a topic for a Ph.D. thesis. The first project developed directly from the question how income inequality in Germany had developed over the last decade. Since 2005, we observed a growing labor market and economic recovery from the recession in the early 2000s. Given these increasing employment opportunities, we analyzed how income inequality developed. Our main finding was that income inequality did not increase further after 2005. On the one hand, within-year employment opportunities compensated otherwise rising inequality in annual labor incomes. On the other hand, income inequality did not decrease at all, because all parts of the income distribution benefited from the economic boom after 2006. The concept of equality of opportunity (EOP) is directly related to income inequality and labor market development. A natural question is the dependence of inequality in adult outcomes on family background and childhood circumstances when working on income inequality and its underlying causes. The literature on EOP divides all potential determinants of adult outcomes in two main categories, circumstances and effort. The former comprise of all factors outside the realm of personal responsibility for which society should not hold people responsible, such as parental education. The latter represents personal choices and effort independent of circumstances. Total equality of opportunity would exist if inequality in adult income depended on effort. As I was interested in income inequality in the household context as well, the second project stemmed from the question how measurement of EOP depends on the partner in a relationship. We found that taking into account the spouse in measuring EOP matters empirically and from a theoretical perspective. A prominent circumstance in the EOP literature is the country of origin. The increasing refugee migration all over Europe and Germany in particular raised the question which opportunities these newly arriving immigrants would face. Working on such timely events has benefits and disadvantages. On the one hand, one is sure to 1 work on the frontier of applied research and social debate. On the other hand, data is scarce and the consequences of events cannot fully be observed immediately. Hence, we started to work on the short-terms effect of increased refugee migration to Germany in terms of employment, crime, and voting behavior. Our analysis indicates a small effect on crime rates, mostly around reception centers and with respect to drug crimes. The results on labor market integration showed an increase in foreign job seekers. The recognition of refugee status is the necessary premise for labor market integration, but not necessarily sufficient. Extensive research has been conducted on the integration of refugees into the labor market and society. However, no consensus has been reached which factors perform best at facilitating job search and employment prospects. Many governments around de world use allocation schemes in order to pre- vent the formation of enclaves. In 2016, also the German government implemented a residency obligation for accepted refugees. The last chapter of my Ph.D. thesis is about the effectiveness of such an allocation scheme in fostering labor market integration and preventing criminal behavior of accepted refugees. Thereby, I combine insights from previous work in the final chapter. So far, I find a small but significantly positive effect of a residency obligation on employment prospects.

The contributions in this book highlight, contextualize and analyze different aspects of social inequality. What are the various cause and effects of inequality? How have these changed over recent decades? Which social policies might be best able to intervene? Written by authors from a variety of disciplines and geographical regions, these contributions provide a rich account of inequality within contemporary society. The role of the state, the media and the market in exacerbating and alleviating patterns of equality are all accessed alongside analysis of changing patterns of exclusion and hierarchy