Has the instability of personal incomes been increasing?

This paper examines trends in the instability of personal incomes in Britain in terms of changes in the transitory variance and in volatility, measures that have received much recent attention in research about the USA. It is shown that, although US measures have trended upwards over the past two decades, there is no such trend in Britain between the early-1990s and the mid-2000s. Explanations for these differences are discussed.