Statistical Measurement of Income Polarization. A cross-national comparison

While recent research on income polarization is based on only a few approaches, this paper portrays the major methods and applies each to income distributions of Germany (1984-2000) and the US (1984-1997) using the Cross-National Equivalent Files. In addition, statistical inference is provided via bootstrap techniques. Further, we combine kernel density estimation with a unimodality test. The empirical results reveal increasing polarization and inequality in the US while the corresponding figures remain almost constant for Germany.