ifo Schnelldienst 02/2020: Inequality under the Microscope

Inequality under the Microscope – New Policy Responses to a Familiar Issue

For many years, inequality has been a topic of much discussion. The public debate gives the impression that the inequality of income and wealth in Germany and Europe has increased significantly in recent years. This leads to the demand that redistribution should be a policy goal with a view to stopping the gap between rich and poor widening even further. But is the data really as clear as all that? Different datasets often lead to different conclusions about the extent of inequality in society. So once again the question arises: how can inequality be quantified? Is the right measure the Gini coefficient or the poverty risk rate? Do we have a problem because capital income has grown more strongly than wage income? Or is the distribution in particular of wealth in society rapidly becoming more uneven – not least because of the enormous price increases on the German housing market? Our authors discuss answers to these questions.

With contributions from: 

• Judith Niehues and Maximilian Stockhausen, Inequality(s), a Well-Known Phenomenon?
• Andreas Peichl, The Power of Numbers: A Critical Look at the Quantification of Inequality
• Charlotte Bartels: Rising Polarization of Market Incomes
• Mario Bossler, Bernd Fitzenberger, and Arnim Seidlitz, News on Wage Inequality in Germany
• Moritz Kuhn, Wealth Inequality in Germany
• Till Baldenius, Sebastian Kohl, and Moritz Schularick, The New Housing Question. Winners and Losers of the German Real Estate Boom
• Rolf Kleimann, Inequality – See what the Case Is