In Search of the Roots of American Inequality Exceptionalism: An Analysis Based on Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) Data

Earlier work has established that the US has exceptionally high inequality of disposable household income (i.e., income after accounting for taxes and transfers). There is a debate whether it is due to an unusually high inequality of market (pre‐tax‐pre‐transfer) income or to weak redistribution. In this paper, we look more deeply at market income inequality, focusing on its main component--labor income--across a group of 24 OECD countries. We disaggregate the working‐age population into household types, defined by the number and gender of the household’s earners and the partnership and parent... Mehr ...