Earnings Disparities in Unified Germany: Nominal versus Real
Tóm tắt
Data on nominal earnings are widely used both in policy discussions and in economic research. However,
for welfare comparisons and tests of economic theories, real – i.e. price level adjusted –
earnings should be used. In this paper, I provide evidence on the cost of living in German states and use
these data to calculate real earnings. Then, I compare nominal and real earnings and their evolutions from
1993 until 2002. I show that the regional variation of real earnings is much lower than that of nominal
earnings and that nominal earnings are a bad substitute for real earnings in economic applications.
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