Does Financial Deregulation Boost Top Incomes? Evidence from the Big Bang

Julia Tanndal () and Daniel Waldenström
Additional contact information
Julia Tanndal: Brown University

No 9684, IZA Discussion Papers from IZA Network @ LISER

Abstract: This study estimates the impact of financial deregulation on top income shares. Using the novel econometric method of constructing synthetic control groups, we show that the "Big Bang"-deregulations in the United Kingdom in 1986 and Japan 1997-1999 increased the share of pre-tax incomes going to top earners by over 20 percent in the U.K. and over 10 percent in Japan. The effect is strongest in the top five percentiles in the U.K. whereas it is mainly driven by the lower part of the top decile in Japan. The findings are robust to placebo tests, alternative ways to construct synthetic controls and scrutiny of post-treatment trends. Higher earnings among financial sector employees appear to be an important mechanism behind this result.

Keywords: synthetic control method; income inequality; institutions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D31 G18 H24 J30 N20 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 73 pages
Date: 2016-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-pbe
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Published - published in: Economics, 2018, 85 (338), 232-265

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp9684.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Does Financial Deregulation Boost Top Incomes? Evidence from the Big Bang (2018)
Working Paper: Does Financial Deregulation Boost Top Incomes? Evidence from the Big Bang (2016)
Working Paper: Does Financial Deregulation Boost Top Incomes? Evidence from the Big Bang (2016)
Working Paper: Does Financial Deregulation Boost Top Incomes? Evidence from the Big Bang (2016)
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:iza:izadps:dp9684

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from IZA Network @ LISER Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Mark Fallak ().