Pro-rich inflation in Europe: implications for the measurement of inequality

  • This paper studies the distributional consequences of a systematic variation in expenditure shares and prices. Using European Union Household Budget Surveys and Harmonized Index of Consumer Prices data, we construct household-specific price indices and reveal the existence of a pro-rich inflation in Europe. Particularly, over the period 2001-15, the consumption bundles of the poorest deciles in 25 European countries have, on average, become 10.5 percentage points more expensive than those of the richest decile. We find that ignoring the differential inflation across the distribution underestimates the change in the Gini (based on consumption expenditure) by up to 0.03 points. Cross-country heterogeneity in this change is large enough to alter the inequality ranking of numerous countries. The average inflation effect we detect is almost as large as the change in the standard Gini measure over the period of interest.

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Metadaten
Author:Alfons J. WeichenriederORCiDGND, Eren GürerORCiDGND
URN:urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-466757
URL:https://ssrn.com/abstract=3183723
Parent Title (English):SAFE working paper series ; No. 209
Series (Serial Number):SAFE working paper (209)
Publisher:SAFE
Place of publication:Frankfurt am Main
Document Type:Working Paper
Language:English
Year of Completion:2018
Year of first Publication:2018
Publishing Institution:Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenberg
Release Date:2018/06/12
Tag:EU countries; Gini; income dependent inflation; inequality
Issue:17 may 2018
Page Number:44
HeBIS-PPN:433319852
Institutes:Wirtschaftswissenschaften / Wirtschaftswissenschaften
Wissenschaftliche Zentren und koordinierte Programme / House of Finance (HoF)
Wissenschaftliche Zentren und koordinierte Programme / Center for Financial Studies (CFS)
Wissenschaftliche Zentren und koordinierte Programme / Sustainable Architecture for Finance in Europe (SAFE)
Dewey Decimal Classification:3 Sozialwissenschaften / 33 Wirtschaft / 330 Wirtschaft
Sammlungen:Universitätspublikationen
Licence (German):License LogoDeutsches Urheberrecht