Top Incomes in Germany and Switzerland over the Twentieh Century

Fabien Dell
Additional contact information
Fabien Dell: PJSE - Paris-Jourdan Sciences Economiques - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

Post-Print from HAL

Abstract: This paper presents new homogeneous series on top income shares in Germany (1891-1998) and Switzerland (1933-1995), using data from income tax returns. The general pattern is consistent with recent results for France: the secular decline in income inequality is for the most part an accidental, capital income phenomenon. Very top incomes were badly hurt by the major shocks of the 1914-1945 period and never fully recovered afterwards. Since 1945, top income shares have been relatively stable, with no rise during recent years (unlike in the U.S. The striking episode before WWII is how Nazi power brought top income shares to almost double within five years. The striking result after WWII is that German top incomes are more concentrated within the top decile than in other industrialized countries. Thus the German super-rich were richer than their American counterparts until the 1990s. This puzzle is related to the much lower inheritance tax rates observed in Germany since WWII.

Date: 2005-05
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (18)

Published in Journal of the European Economic Association, 2005, 3 (2-3), pp.412-421. ⟨10.1162/jeea.2005.3.2-3.412⟩

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
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:hal:journl:hal-00813565

DOI: 10.1162/jeea.2005.3.2-3.412

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Post-Print from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().