Immeasurable inequality in the European Union

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. . All these approaches have certain drawbacks, and many of them have been subject to academic criticism. Terms of use: Documents in 10Constructing a measure of international (global or European) inequality requires the combination of measures of within-country inequality with measures of betweencountry inequality. As a rule, there is no simple mathematical operation which makes it possible to calculate the international measure from given national measures. The most widely used measures of inequality are the Gini coeffi cient and the Theil T-index and the ratio of certain income brackets, such as deciles or quintiles, usually between the top and the bottom bracket. The problem of composing aggregate measures mirrors the problem of decomposing aggregate indicators into contributory factors. The latter has long been a problem of social research with a view to identifying the role of sex, race or region in explaining overall inequality.11 The literature on both processes, decomposing and composing, shows clearly that one needs to resort to the individual data sets. One cannot, for instance, calculate an international Gini coeffi cient from national Gini coeffi cients plus the population and average income per capita fi gures of the countries included. Starting from national quintile ratios, one cannot obtain the international ratio by calculating averages weighted by population or total income. Eu- Inequality is never easy to measure, but measuring transnational inequality is particularly diffi cult. 2 All the problems of measuring and comparing income levels (before or after redistribution through taxes and benefi ts, income and expenditure, individuals or households with adultequivalents, the effects of owner occupancy and household production, and many more issues) are compounded by additional diffi culties (exchange rates and purchasing power, different price levels and infl ation rates, differences in national statistics). Nonetheless, there is a substantial body of literature on these questions as they relate to global inequality. Michael Dauderstädt* and Cem Keltek** Immeasurable Inequality in the European UnionOver time, the European Union has acquired more and more of the attributes of a state and, in economic terms, it can arguably be considered a single market. Nevertheless, the differences between member states are enormous. Small, rich countries, such as Luxembourg, contrast sharply with big, poor ones, such as Romania. Despite this, many indica...

The social structure of european inequality: a multidimensional perspective

“…Surprisingly, few works have considered the pertinence of and need for an examination of this question at a truly European level of analysis. There have been some important exceptions, like Dauderstädt and Keltek (2011; or Fredriksen (2012), who do present arguments and analyses that go in this direction. We hope that our own contribution can also help to achieve recognition of how important this transnational level of analysis is when it comes to measuring and understanding European inequalities.…”

“…PPS is commonly used in comparative international analyses to adapt the diverse purchasing power of money to each country's economic conditions (see Cingano, 2014, with OECD data and concerned to USA reality). Nonetheless, more and more authors have noted problems with this approach (Anand and Segal, 2008;Deaton, 2010), particularly in Europe (Dauderstädt and Keltek, 2011;. In effect, a growing portion of the cost-of-living and economic capacities of Europeans does not have a strictly national character, as evidenced through the following observations: the increasing integration of the European space, the intensification of imports and exports, the international mobility of people in the European space, the online transactions, and the transnationalization of consumption and lifestyles (Mau, 2010;Favell and Guiraudon, 2011;Mau and Mewes, 2012).…”

Income Disparities in the European Union

“…Die strukturellen Befunde der genannten Studien decken sich weitgehend mit den Ergebnissen des Autors und der von ihm entwickelten Quintilmethode (Dauderstädt, 2008und Dauderstädt und Keltek, 2011 1 9 1 7 2 5 3 3 4 1 4 9 5 7 6 5 7 3 8 1 8 9 9 7 1 0 5 1 1 3 1 2 1 1 2 9 1 3 7 2 0 0 5 2 0 0 6 2 0 0 7 2 0 0 8 2 0 0 9 2 0 1 0 2 0 1 1 2 0 1 2 2 0 1 3 2 0 1 4 2 0 1 5 2 0 1 6 2 0 1 7 2 0 1 8 (Heidenreich, 2006).…”

European-Wide Inequality in Times of the Financial Crisis

“…Other national-level analyses include Avram et al (2013) Roine et al (2009), Dagdeviren (2014), Hellebrandt (2014), De Beer (2012, Theodoropoulo andWatt (2011), andGrabka (2015). To our knowledge, only Dauderstädt and Keltek (2012) have estimated EU-wide inequality in the first years of the crisis.…”