[Pophealth] top Income and Wealth Shares inn English speaking countries

[Stephen Bezruchka]

Several papers and reports have appeared graphically depicting the rise in 
income inequality in English speaking countries.  The citations and links 
are below.  Thanks to Dennis Raphael for pointing them out.  STephen

"Top Incomes in the United States and Canada over the Twentieth Century",
Journal of the European Economic Association, Papers and Proceedings,
3(2-3), 2005, 402-411

http://emlab.berkeley.edu/users/saez/saezJEEA-PP05us-canada.pdf

This paper presents top income shares series for the United States and 
Canada over the 20th century. In both countries, top income shares display 
a U-shaped pattern over the century, with a precipitous drop 
duringWorldWar II, with no recovery in the following decades. Since the 
late 1970s, however, top income shares have been increasing dramatically 
and the very top shares are now almost as high as in the prewar era. The 
drop in top income shares in the first part of the century is mainly a 
capital income phenomenon but the recent increase in top income shares is 
the consequence of a surge in top wages and salaries. The United States 
reduced significantly marginal tax rates for high incomes over the last 40 
years but Canada did not. Therefore, the almost identical upward pattern 
of top income shares in both countries cannot be solely explained by 
changes in tax avoidance behavior. Mobility at the top of the income 
distribution has been very stable in Canada in spite of the surge in 
annual income concentration. Thus the increase in annual top income shares 
in Northern America will likely translate into an increase in permanent 
income concentration of similar magnitude




THE EVOLUTION OF TOP INCOMES:
A HISTORICAL AND INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE
Thomas Piketty
Emmanuel Saez
Working Paper 11955
http://www.nber.org/papers/w11955
http://emlab.berkeley.edu/users/saez/piketty-saezNBER06AEAPP.pdf

This paper summarizes the main findings of the recent studies that have 
constructed top income and wealth shares series over the century for a 
number of countries using tax statistics. Most countries experience a 
dramatic drop in top income shares in the first part of the century due to 
a precipitous drop in large wealth holdings during the wars and depression 
shocks. Top income shares do not recover in the immediate post war 
decades. However, over the last 30 years, top income shares have increased 
substantially in English speaking countries but not at all in continental 
Europe countries or Japan. This increase is due to an unprecedented surge 
in top wage incomes starting in the 1970s and accelerating in the 1990s. 
As a result, top wage earners have replaced capital income earners at the 
top of the income distribution in English speaking countries. We discuss 
the proposed explanations and the main questions that remain open.