Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0

Author-Name: Mihály Szoboszlai
Author-Workplace-Name: Magyar Nemzeti Bank
Author-Email: szoboszlaim@mnb.hu

Title: Disaggregated Household Incomes in Hungary Based on the Comparative Analysis of the Reweighted Household Surveys of 2010 and 2015

Abstract: In the period 2010–2015, the Hungarian employment rate recorded an outstanding
increase even by European standards. During this period, the Hungarian Central
Statistical Office recorded a 9 per cent increase in the number of employees, coupled
with a 15.5 per cent rise in net real wages. This study presents the evolution of these
indicators broken down by income groups. In addition to number of employees and
labour incomes, changes in the total compensation of pension and social benefit
recipients are also discussed in the study. Calculations are based on the 2010 and 2015
data waves of the household budget statistics. One disadvantage of using these data,
however, is that they are distorted along the income distribution due to the phenomenon
that high earners are typically represented by a low number of observations. The study
presents a two-step recalibration procedure with previously unused cohort formation
that addresses the aforementioned coverage deficiency with adjustment to external
data sources. The material well-being of different household income groups can be
tracked in the database produced by the applied method, and the macroeconomic
indicators can be supplemented by pieces of distribution information. According to
the results defined as the difference between the two years’ data under review, the
employment growth in the interim period was determined by the employment of
the two lower income quintiles. In the assessment of social benefits, with the limited
information available, the chosen tool does not provide a comprehensive view of the
changes in these income categories; therefore, the quantified differences between the
reweighted sample years’ data should be considered with caution. Broken down by
income group, real wage indices exhibited considerable fluctuations.

Classification-JEL: D31, D33, J31
Keywords: Income, income distribution, wage distribution, well-being, household
statistics, reweighting
Pages: 99-123
Volume: 17
Issue: 2
Year: 2018
File-URL: http://english.hitelintezetiszemle.hu/letoltes/fer-17-2-st4-szoboszlai.pdf
File-Format: Application/pdf
Handle: RePEc:mnb:finrev:v:17:y:2018:i:2:p:99-123