IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/hpe/journl/y2004v168i1p123-141.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Income Tax and Top Incomes over the Twentieth Century

Author

Listed:
  • A. B. Atkinson

    (Nuffield College, Oxford)

Abstract

The first section of the paper gives a stylised account of the development of the UK income tax structure over the past 200 years, and refers to recent changes in other OECD countries. The second section turns to the distribution of income and summarises the evidence about the top of the income distribution that can be derived from the income tax data. The main results relate to the UK, but comparisons are made with similar evidence for Canada, France, the Netherlands, and the US. The third part of the paper considers the explanation of the observed changes in the distribution and the impact of progressive income taxation. How far are changes in income shares a reflection of the re-arrangement of income? How far are they associated with changes in the composition of top incomes? Conclusions about distributional incidence have to be based on modelling the determination of the personal income distribution, but such modelling is not typically treated in public finance textbooks. The fourth section of the paper considers how the analysis of distributional incidence can be developed, paying specific attention to the explanation of the upper tail of the distribution

Suggested Citation

  • A. B. Atkinson, 2004. "Income Tax and Top Incomes over the Twentieth Century," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 168(1), pages 123-141, march.
    • Handle: RePEc:hpe:journl:y:2004:v:168:i:1:p:123-141
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.ief.es/comun/Descarga.cshtml?ruta=~/docs/destacados/publicaciones/revistas/hpe/168_Art6.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lazear, Edward P & Rosen, Sherwin, 1981. "Rank-Order Tournaments as Optimum Labor Contracts," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(5), pages 841-864, October.
    2. Roger H. Gordon & Joel Slemrod, 1998. "Are "Real" Responses to Taxes Simply Income Shifting Between Corporate and Personal Tax Bases?," NBER Working Papers 6576, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. A. B. Atkinson & S. Voitchovsky, 2011. "The Distribution of Top Earnings in the UK since the Second World War," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 78(311), pages 440-459, July.
    4. Tony Atkinson, 2002. "Top Incomes in the United Kingdom Over the Twentieth Century," Oxford Economic and Social History Working Papers _043, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    5. Agell, Jonas & Englund, Peter & Sodersten, Jan, 1996. "Tax Reform of the Century -- the Swedish Experiment," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 49(4), pages 643-664, December.
    6. Rosen, Sherwin, 1981. "The Economics of Superstars," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(5), pages 845-858, December.
    7. Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1969. "Distribution of Income and Wealth among Individuals," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 37(3), pages 382-397, July.
    8. Tony Atkinson, 2002. "Top Incomes in the United Kingdom Over the Twentieth Century," Economics Series Working Papers 2002-W43, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    9. Musgrave, Richard A, 1987. "Short of Euphoria," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 1(1), pages 59-71, Summer.
    10. Anthony B. Atkinson & Wiemer Salverda, 2005. "Top Incomes In The Netherlands And The United Kingdom Over The 20th Century," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 3(4), pages 883-913, June.
    11. Pechman, Joseph A, 1987. "Tax Reform: Theory and Practice," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 1(1), pages 11-28, Summer.
    12. F. A. Lutz, 1961. "The Theory of Capital," International Economic Association Series, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-1-349-08452-4 edited by D. C. Hague, December.
    13. Nicholas Kaldor, 1961. "Capital Accumulation and Economic Growth," International Economic Association Series, in: D. C. Hague (ed.), The Theory of Capital, chapter 0, pages 177-222, Palgrave Macmillan.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Uddin, Md. Main & Mishra, Vinod & Smyth, Russell, 2020. "Income inequality and CO2 emissions in the G7, 1870–2014: Evidence from non-parametric modelling," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    2. Frank A. Cowell & Maria-Pia Victoria-Feser, 2008. "Modelling Lorenz Curves: Robust and Semi-parametric Issues," Economic Studies in Inequality, Social Exclusion, and Well-Being, in: Duangkamon Chotikapanich (ed.), Modeling Income Distributions and Lorenz Curves, chapter 13, pages 241-253, Springer.
    3. Frank Cowell & Maria-Pia Victoria-Feser, 2007. "Robust stochastic dominance: A semi-parametric approach," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 5(1), pages 21-37, April.
    4. Jukka Pirttilä & Hakan Selin, 2011. "Tax Policy and Employment: How Does the Swedish System Fare?," CESifo Working Paper Series 3355, CESifo.
    5. Marat Ibragimov & Rustam Ibragimov, 2018. "Heavy tails and upper-tail inequality: The case of Russia," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 54(2), pages 823-837, March.
    6. Cabral, René & García-Díaz, Rocío & Mollick, André Varella, 2016. "Does globalization affect top income inequality?," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 38(5), pages 916-940.
    7. Peter Ericson & Lennart Flood & Nizamul Islam, 2015. "Taxes, wages and working hours," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 49(2), pages 503-535, September.
    8. Anjan K. Saha & Vinod Mishra & Russell Smyth, 2021. "Financial development and top income shares in OECD countries," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 87(3), pages 952-978, January.
    9. Alfani, Guido, 2023. "Inequality in History: A Long-Run View," SocArXiv 94dgs, Center for Open Science.
    10. Roine, Jesper & Vlachos, Jonas & Waldenström, Daniel, 2009. "The long-run determinants of inequality: What can we learn from top income data?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(7-8), pages 974-988, August.
    11. Francisco M. Gonzalez & Jean‐François Wen, 2015. "A Theory of Top Income Taxation and Social Insurance," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 125(587), pages 1474-1500, September.
    12. A. B. Atkinson, 2005. "Top incomes in the UK over the 20th century," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 168(2), pages 325-343, March.
    13. Sefa Awaworyi Churchill & Bin Peng & Russell Smyth & Quanda Zhang, 2022. "R&D intensity and income inequality in the G7: 1870–2016," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 69(3), pages 263-282, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jess Benhabib & Alberto Bisin, 2018. "Skewed Wealth Distributions: Theory and Empirics," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 56(4), pages 1261-1291, December.
    2. A. B. Atkinson, 2003. "Income Inequality in OECD Countries: Data and Explanations," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo Group, vol. 49(4), pages 479-513.
    3. Anthony B. Atkinson & Thomas Piketty & Emmanuel Saez, 2011. "Top Incomes in the Long Run of History," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 49(1), pages 3-71, March.
    4. Emmanuel Saez, 2004. "Reported Incomes and Marginal Tax Rates, 1960–2000: Evidence and Policy Implications," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 18, pages 117-174, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Luigi L. Pasinetti, 2000. "Critique of the neoclassical theory of growth and distribution," Banca Nazionale del Lavoro Quarterly Review, Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, vol. 53(215), pages 383-431.
    6. Luigi L. Pasinetti, 2000. "Critique of the neoclassical theory of growth and distribution," BNL Quarterly Review, Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, vol. 53(215), pages 383-431.
    7. Charles I. Jones, 2015. "Pareto and Piketty: The Macroeconomics of Top Income and Wealth Inequality," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 29(1), pages 29-46, Winter.
    8. Katharina Jenderny, 2016. "Mobility of Top Incomes in Germany," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 62(2), pages 245-265, June.
    9. Santos, João & Domingos, Tiago & Sousa, Tânia & St. Aubyn, Miguel, 2016. "Does a small cost share reflect a negligible role for energy in economic production? Testing for aggregate production functions including capital, labor, and useful exergy through a cointegration-base," MPRA Paper 70850, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Ottaviano, Gianmarco & Peri, Giovanni, 2008. "Immigration and National Wages: Clarifying the Theory and the Empirics," CEPR Discussion Papers 6916, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    11. Gilberto Tadeu Lima, 2000. "Market concentration and technological innovation in a dynamic model of growth and distribution," BNL Quarterly Review, Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, vol. 53(215), pages 447-475.
    12. van de Klundert, T.C.M.J. & Smulders, J.A., 1991. "Reconstructing growth theory : A survey," Other publications TiSEM 19355c51-17eb-4d5d-aa66-b, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    13. Kevin S. Nell & Maria M. De Mello, 2019. "The interdependence between the saving rate and technology across regimes: evidence from South Africa," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 56(1), pages 269-300, January.
    14. Katsiaryna Bardos & Steven E. Kozlowski & Michael R. Puleo, 2021. "Entrenchment or efficiency? CEO‐to‐employee pay ratio and the cost of debt," The Financial Review, Eastern Finance Association, vol. 56(3), pages 511-533, August.
    15. Rajnish Mehra & Facundo Piguillem & Edward C. Prescott, 2011. "Costly financial intermediation in neoclassical growth theory," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 2(1), pages 1-36, March.
    16. Li, Defu & Bental, Benjamin & Huang, Jiuli, 2016. "Stationary Growth and the Impossibility of Capital Efficiency Gains," MPRA Paper 71516, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Shinhye Chang & Rangan Gupta & Stephen M. Miller, 2018. "Causality Between Per Capita Real GDP and Income Inequality in the U.S.: Evidence from a Wavelet Analysis," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 135(1), pages 269-289, January.
    18. Alonso-Carrera, Jaime & Raurich, Xavier, 2015. "Demand-based structural change and balanced economic growth," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 359-374.
    19. Gianmarco I. P. Ottaviano & Giovanni Peri, 2021. "Rethinking The Effect Of Immigration On Wages," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Firms and Workers in a Globalized World Larger Markets, Tougher Competition, chapter 9, pages 245-290, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    20. Studer, Roman, 2008. "India and the Great Divergence: Assessing the Efficiency of Grain Markets in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century India," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 68(2), pages 393-437, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    . : Income; Taxation; Income Distribution; Tax Incidence;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H2 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hpe:journl:y:2004:v:168:i:1:p:123-141. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Miguel Gómez de Antonio (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iefgves.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.