Importing Inequality: Immigration and the Top 1 Percent

Arun Advani, Felix Koenig, Lorenzo Pessina () and Andy Summers ()
Additional contact information
Lorenzo Pessina: Columbia University
Andy Summers: London School of Economics

No 13731, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: In this paper we study the contribution of migrants to the rise in UK top incomes. Using administrative data on the universe of UK taxpayers we show migrants are over-represented at the top of the income distribution, with migrants twice as prevalent in the top 0.1% as anywhere in the bottom 97%. These high incomes are predominantly from labour, rather than capital, and migrants are concentrated in only a handful of industries, predominantly finance. Almost all (85%) of the growth in the UK top 1% income share over the past 20 years can be attributed to migration.

Keywords: income inequality; migration; top income shares (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H2 J3 J6 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 31 pages
Date: 2020-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-int, nep-lab, nep-mig and nep-pbe
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (18)

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https://docs.iza.org/dp13731.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Importing inequality: immigration and the top 1 percent (2020)
Working Paper: Importing Inequality: Immigration and the Top 1 Percent (2020)
Working Paper: Importing Inequality: Immigration and the Top 1 percent (2020)
Working Paper: Importing inequality: immigration and the top 1 percent (2020)
Working Paper: Importing inequality: immigration and the top 1 percent (2020)
Working Paper: Importing inequality: Immigration and the Top 1 percent (2020)
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