The Impact of Cohort Membership on Disposable Incomes in West Germany, France, and the United States

Do some birth cohorts monopolize lucrative positions and social transfers, so that they are unduly advantaged over others? In a world without such intercohort-inequalities, a cohort born into an economy that is, say, two percent richer, should have two percent more disposable income over its life-course. In reality however, increasing prosperity could have bypassed some birth cohorts, while others disproportionately reaped the fruits of economic growth, appropriating lucrative positions and social transfers, thereby disadvantaging other birth cohorts. We measure whether this happened for birth cohorts of the 20th century in West Germany, France and the US. We show how much belonging to a certain birth cohort influences incomes in these three countries and whether they advantage some birth cohorts while disadvantaging others. The existing literature has speculated on this question, but not answered it. This is largely due to methodological limitations, as we show below.