Top Incomes in the Long Run of History

Anthony Atkinson, Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez

Journal of Economic Literature, 2011, vol. 49, issue 1, 3-71

Abstract: A recent literature has constructed top income shares time series over the long run for more than twenty countries using income tax statistics. Top incomes represent a small share of the population but a very significant share of total income and total taxes paid. Hence, aggregate economic growth per capita and Gini inequality indexes are sensitive to excluding or including top incomes. We discuss the estimation methods and issues that arise when constructing top income share series, including income definition and comparability over time and across countries, tax avoidance, and tax evasion. We provide a summary of the key empirical findings. Most countries experience a dramatic drop in top income shares in the first part of the twentieth century in general due to shocks to top capital incomes during the wars and depression shocks. Top income shares do not recover in the immediate postwar decades. However, over the last thirty years, top income shares have increased substantially in English speaking countries and in India and China but not in continental European countries or Japan. This increase is due in part to an unprecedented surge in top wage incomes. As a result, wage income comprises a larger fraction of top incomes than in the past. Finally, we discuss the theoretical and empirical models that have been proposed to account for the facts and the main questions that remain open. (JEL D31, D63, H26, N30)

JEL-codes: D31 D63 H26 N30 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
Note: DOI: 10.1257/jel.49.1.3
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1489)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/jel.49.1.3 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Top Incomes in the Long Run of History (2011)
Working Paper: Top Incomes in the Long Run of History (2011)
Working Paper: Top Incomes in the Long Run of History (2009)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aea:jeclit:v:49:y:2011:i:1:p:3-71

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/subscriptions

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Literature is currently edited by Steven Durlauf

More articles in Journal of Economic Literature from American Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael P. Albert ().