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Cited by 1,636Income, Poverty, and InequalityEconomic Theory and PolicyLabor market dynamics and wage inequality

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 66 of the 71 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Wealth Inequality in the United States since 1913: Evidence from Capitalized Income Tax Data

Saez, Emmanuel, Zucman, Gabriel·2016·The Quarterly Journal of Economics
DOI 10.1093/qje/qjw004
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Abstract

This paper combines income tax returns with macroeconomic household balance sheets to estimate the distribution of wealth in the United States since 1913. We estimate wealth by capitalizing the incomes reported by individual taxpayers, accounting for assets that do not generate taxable income. We successfully test our capitalization method in three micro datasets where we can observe both income and wealth: the Survey of Consumer Finance, linked estate and income tax returns, and foundations’ tax records. We find that wealth concentration was high in the beginning of the twentieth century, fell from 1929 to 1978, and has continuously increased since then. The top 0.1% wealth share has risen from 7% in 1978 to 22% in 2012, a level almost as high as in 1929. Top wealth-holders are younger today than in the 1960s and earn a higher fraction of the economy’s labor income. The bottom 90% wealth share first increased up to the mid-1980s and then steadily declined. The increase in wealth inequality in recent decades is due to the upsurge of top incomes combined with an increase in saving rate inequality. We explain how our findings can be reconciled with Survey of Consumer Finances and estate tax data.

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Crossref · 10.1093/qje/qjw004

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66 of 66 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

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Citations

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Show all 71 references

Research works printed but not linked: 10

  1. Bryant, 2013, Accumulation and Distribution of Individual Retirement Arrangements, 2010, Internal Revenue Service: Statistics of Income Bulletin
  2. Magazine, 2004, The Forbes 400: The Richest People in America
  3. Goldsmith, 1956, A Study of Saving in the Unites States, Vol. 3
  4. Hollenbeck, 2014, Individual Foreign-Earned Income and Foreign Tax Credit, 2011, Internal Revenue Service: Statistics of Income Bulletin
  5. Johnson, Compendium of Federal Estate Tax and Personal Wealth Studies
  6. Johnson, Compendium of Federal Estate Tax and Personal Wealth Studies, Vol. 2
  7. Rosenmerkel, Crossing the Bar: Predicting Wealth from Income and Estate Tax Records
  8. US Senate, 2008, Tax Haven Banks and US Tax compliance, Staff Report of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations
  9. US Senate, 2014, Offshore Tax Evasion: The Effort to Collect Unpaid Taxes on Billions in Hidden Offshore Accounts, Staff Report of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations
  10. Wolff, 1980, Estimates of the 1969 Size Distribution of Household Wealth in the U.S. from a Synthetic Data Base

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Metadata

Authors
Saez, E., & Zucman, G.
Affiliations
  • National Bureau of Economic Research (US)
  • University of California, Berkeley (US)
Venue
The Quarterly Journal of Economics
Publisher
Oxford University Press (OUP)
Published
2016-02-16
Volume
131
Issue
2
Pages
519-578
ISSN
  • 0033-5533 (ISSN-L)
  • 1531-4650
DOI
10.1093/qje/qjw004
OpenAlex
W1532170681
Cited by
1,636
References
71
Citations by year
2026: 102 · 2025: 179 · 2024: 155 · 2023: 169 · 2022: 161 · 2021: 173 · 2020: 213 · 2019: 144 · 2018: 122 · 2017: 116 · 2016: 68
FWCI
314.00
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Locations
  • The Quarterly Journal of Economics (publishedVersion)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
  • HighWire Press Open Archive (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Income, Poverty, and Inequality
  • Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › General Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economic Theory and Policy
  • Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Labor market dynamics and wage inequality
Keywords
wealth inequality, wealth distribution, income tax returns, household balance sheets, top wealth shares, top incomes, wealth concentration, estate tax, foundations, Survey of Consumer Finances, United States

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