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Top Indian wealth shares and inheritances 1966–1985

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  • Rishabh Kumar

    (California State University San Bernardino)

Abstract

Between 1953 and 1985, India implemented various progressive taxes on personal wealth. I use estate tax returns to compute top wealth shares (top 1%, top 0.1%, and top 0.01%) over 1966–1985; a period marked explicitly by a dirigiste policy environment. These new series suggest that wealth concentration in India reduced substantially during the 1970s. Although the decline affected the entire top 1%, the losses faced by the top 0.01% were especially large. Combined with identical trends in top income shares, it appears that the 1950–1980 expropriations of India’s rich had similarities to institutional transitions and shocks faced by European elites in the early to mid twentieth century.

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  • Rishabh Kumar, 2020. "Top Indian wealth shares and inheritances 1966–1985," Cliometrica, Springer;Cliometric Society (Association Francaise de Cliométrie), vol. 14(3), pages 551-580, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:cliomt:v:14:y:2020:i:3:d:10.1007_s11698-019-00198-7
    DOI: 10.1007/s11698-019-00198-7
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    Cited by:

    1. Anand, Ishan & Kumar, Rishabh, 2022. "The sky and the stratosphere: concentrated wealth in India during the ‘lost decade’," SocArXiv 726c8, Center for Open Science.

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