Abstract We evaluate social progress on the basis of panel data on individual incomes by comparing the value of social welfare in the observed panel data to its value in a situation where individuals receive their first period income in each period. We derive necessary conditions for the welfare gain to be positive, and show how it can be decomposed in an effect of economic growth, a mobility effect and a cost due to aversion to time fluctuations given individuals’ ranks in the income distribution. The mobility effect, generated by reranking in the income distribution has two components: a cost due to time fluctuations in incomes and a benefit, due to equalization in time averaged incomes. We illustrate the analysis using CNEF data for Australia, Korea, Germany, Russia, Switzerland and the US. Our results indicate that the largest component of social progress is the equalization of time averaged income, induced by reranking. In countries with high growth (Australia, Korea and Russia), the growth effect is larger than the mobility effect, but in countries with low growth (Germany, Switzerland and the US), the opposite holds true. The poor performance of the US is explained by the large costs of income fluctuations and the way economic growth is distributed.

中文翻译：

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增长、流动性和社会进步

摘要 我们通过比较观察到的面板数据中的社会福利值与个人在每个时期获得第一期收入的情况下的价值，在个人收入面板数据的基础上评估社会进步。我们推导出福利收益为正的必要条件，并展示了如何将其分解为经济增长效应、流动性效应和由于个人在收入分配中的排名对时间波动的厌恶而产生的成本。收入分配重新排序产生的流动性效应有两个组成部分：收入时间波动引起的成本和时间平均收入均等引起的收益。我们使用澳大利亚、韩国、德国、俄罗斯、瑞士和美国的 CNEF 数据来说明分析。我们的结果表明，社会进步的最大组成部分是由重新排名引起的时间平均收入的均等化。在高增长国家（澳大利亚、韩国和俄罗斯），增长效应大于流动效应，但在低增长国家（德国、瑞士和美国），则相反。美国表现不佳的原因是收入波动的巨大成本和经济增长的分配方式。