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Volatile Top Income Shares in Switzerland? Reassessing the Evolution Between 1981 and 2008

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  • Foellmi, Reto
  • Martinez, Isabel

Abstract

We study the recent evolution of top incomes in Switzerland. We close the data gap between 1993 and 2003 exploiting the fact that cantons changed their tax system at different points in time which allows us to use the non-changing cantons as control group. The results show that the share of top incomes has risen, the top 0.01% share even doubled in the last 20 years. However, top incomes exhibited large variation in the business cycle. We compare the results with social security data on top labor incomes for which the top shares can be measured precisely over the whole time span. The comparison confirms our initial findings and suggests that labor incomes have become more important among top income earners.

Suggested Citation

  • Foellmi, Reto & Martinez, Isabel, 2012. "Volatile Top Income Shares in Switzerland? Reassessing the Evolution Between 1981 and 2008," Economics Working Paper Series 1227, University of St. Gallen, School of Economics and Political Science, revised Jun 2013.
    • Handle: RePEc:usg:econwp:2012:27
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    File URL: http://ux-tauri.unisg.ch/RePEc/usg/econwp/EWP-1227.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Reich sein in der Schweiz….
      by Reto Föllmi in BATZ.ch on 2013-01-12 22:09:34

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Income inequality; wealth inequality; labor incomes; distribution and volatility;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • O52 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Europe

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