Nothing Special   »   [go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/8155.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Colonial Rule, Apartheid and Natural Resources: Top Incomes in South Africa, 1903-2007

Author

Listed:
  • Atkinson, Anthony B
  • Alvaredo, Facundo
Abstract
There have been important studies of overall income inequality and of poverty in South Africa. In this paper, we approach the subject from a different direction: the extent and evolution of top incomes. We present estimates of the shares in total income of groups such as the top 1 per cent and the top 0.1 per cent, covering, with gaps, more than a hundred years. In order to explain the observed dynamics, here we consider three factors: the transfer of political authority, racial discrimination, and the rich mineral resources. The estimates of top income shares for recent years bear out the picture of South Africa as a highly unequal country.

Suggested Citation

  • Atkinson, Anthony B & Alvaredo, Facundo, 2010. "Colonial Rule, Apartheid and Natural Resources: Top Incomes in South Africa, 1903-2007," CEPR Discussion Papers 8155, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:8155
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP8155
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Brian Dollery, 2003. "A History Of Inequality In South Africa, 1652–2002," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 71(3), pages 595-610, September.
    2. Simon Kuznets & Elizabeth Jenks, 1953. "Shares of Upper Income Groups in Income and Savings (1953)," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number kuzn53-1.
    3. Feinstein,Charles H., 2005. "An Economic History of South Africa," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521616416, October.
    4. Simon Kuznets & Elizabeth Jenks, 1953. "Shares of Upper Income Groups in Savings," NBER Chapters, in: Shares of Upper Income Groups in Income and Savings (1953), pages 171-218, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Anthony Atkinson & Thomas Piketty, 2010. "Top Incomes : A Global Perspective," PSE-Ecole d'économie de Paris (Postprint) halshs-00754875, HAL.
    6. Emmanuel Saez & Michael R. Veall, 2005. "The Evolution of High Incomes in Northern America: Lessons from Canadian Evidence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(3), pages 831-849, June.
    7. D. G. Franzsen, 1954. "National Accounts And National Income In The Union Of South Africa Since 1933," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 22(1), pages 115-126, March.
    8. Atkinson, A. B. & Piketty, Thomas (ed.), 2010. "Top Incomes: A Global Perspective," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199286898.
    9. Feinstein,Charles H., 2005. "An Economic History of South Africa," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521850919, October.
    10. Anthony B. Atkinson & Andrew Leigh, 2007. "The Distribution of Top Incomes in Australia," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 83(262), pages 247-261, September.
    11. Lembke B., 1918. "√ a. p," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 111(1), pages 709-712, February.
    12. Janine Aron & Geeta Kingdon, 2007. "South African Economic Policy Under Democracy," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 16(5), pages 661-667, November.
    13. Servaas Van Der Berg & Megan Louw, 2004. "Changing Patterns Of South African Income Distribution: Towards Time Series Estimates Of Distribution And Poverty1," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 72(3), pages 546-572, September.
    14. Murray Leibbrandt & Ingrid Woolard & Arden Finn & Jonathan Argent, 2010. "Trends in South African Income Distribution and Poverty since the Fall of Apartheid," OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers 101, OECD Publishing.
    15. A. B. Atkinson & Andrew Leigh, 2008. "Top Incomes In New Zealand 1921–2005: Understanding The Effects Of Marginal Tax Rates, Migration Threat, And The Macroeconomy," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 54(2), pages 149-165, June.
    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. Facundo Alvaredo & Lydia Assouad & Thomas Piketty, 2019. "Measuring lnequality in the Middle East 1990–2016: The World’s Most Unequal Region?," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 65(4), pages 685-711, December.
    2. Léo Czajka, 2020. "Income Inequality in Côte d'Ivoire: 1985-2014," Working Papers halshs-02659230, HAL.
    3. Alvaredo, Facundo & Bergeron, Augustin & Cassan, Guilhem, 2017. "Income concentration in British India, 1885–1946," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 459-469.
    4. Alvaredo, Facundo & Cogneau, Denis & Piketty, Thomas, 2020. "Income inequality under Colonial Rule: Evidence from French Algeria, Cameroon, Tunisia, and Vietnam and comparisons with the Br," CEPR Discussion Papers 14969, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    5. Alvaredo, Facundo & Cogneau, Denis & Piketty, Thomas, 2021. "Income inequality under colonial rule. Evidence from French Algeria, Cameroon, Tunisia, and Vietnam and comparisons with British colonies 1920–1960," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    6. Yajna Govind, 2020. "Post-colonial Trends of Income Inequality: Evidence from the Overseas Departments of France," World Inequality Lab Working Papers halshs-03022303, HAL.
    7. Daron Acemoglu & James A. Robinson, 2015. "The Rise and Decline of General Laws of Capitalism," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 29(1), pages 3-28, Winter.
    8. Lucas Chancel & Denis Cogneau & Amory Gethin & Alix Myczkowski, 2019. "How large are African inequalities? Towards Distributional National Accounts in Africa, 1990 - 2017," World Inequality Lab Working Papers hal-02876986, HAL.
    9. Léo Czajka, 2017. "Income Inequality in Côte d'Ivoire: 1985-2014," Working Papers 201708, World Inequality Lab.
    10. Lucas Chancel & Denis Cogneau & Amory Gethin & Alix Myczkowski, 2019. "How large are African inequalities? Towards Distributional National Accounts in Africa, 1990 - 2017," World Inequality Lab Working Papers hal-02876986, HAL.
    11. Piketty, Thomas & Alvaredo, Facundo & Assouad, Lydia, 2017. "Measuring inequality in the Middle East 1990-2016: The World’s Most Unequal Region?," CEPR Discussion Papers 12405, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    12. Facundo Alvaredo & Leonardo Gasparini, 2013. "Recent Trends in Inequality and Poverty in Developing Countries," CEDLAS, Working Papers 0151, CEDLAS, Universidad Nacional de La Plata.
    13. Santoro, Fabrizio, 2021. "To file or not to file? Another dimension of tax compliance - the Eswatini Taxpayers’ survey," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 95(C).
    14. Siameh, Celestine O., 2020. "Universal Basic Income, Targeted Cash Transfers, and Progressive Taxation: Reducing Income Inequality in South Africa," 2020 Annual Meeting, July 26-28, Kansas City, Missouri 304571, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.

    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. Atkinson, Tony & Alvaredo, Facundo, 2016. "Top Incomes in South Africa Over a Century," INET Oxford Working Papers 2016-06, Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford.
    2. Facundo Alvaredo & A. B. Atkinson, 2022. "Top incomes in South Africa in the twentieth century," Cliometrica, Springer;Cliometric Society (Association Francaise de Cliométrie), vol. 16(3), pages 477-546, September.
    3. Facundo Alvaredo & Anthony B Atkinson, 2010. "Colonial Rule, Apartheid and Natural Resources: Top Incomes in South Africa 1903-2005," OxCarre Working Papers 046, Oxford Centre for the Analysis of Resource Rich Economies, University of Oxford.
    4. 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.
    5. Atkinson, Tony & Leigh, Andrew, 2010. "The Distribution of Top Incomes in Five Anglo-Saxon Countries over the Twentieth Century," IZA Discussion Papers 4937, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Christoph A. Schaltegger & Christoph Gorgas, 2011. "The Evolution of Top Incomes in Switzerland over the 20th Century," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 147(IV), pages 479-519, December.
    7. Raymundo M. Campos-Vazquez & Emmanuel Chavez & Gerardo Esquivel, 2017. "Growth is (really) good for the (really) rich," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(12), pages 2639-2675, December.
    8. Pawel Bukowski & Filip Novokmet, 2017. "Top Incomes during Wars, Communism and Capitalism: Poland 1892-2015," Working Papers halshs-02797835, HAL.
    9. Emmanuel Saez & Joel Slemrod & Seth H. Giertz, 2012. "The Elasticity of Taxable Income with Respect to Marginal Tax Rates: A Critical Review," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 50(1), pages 3-50, March.
    10. 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.
    11. Pawel Bukowski & Filip Novokmet, 2017. "Top Incomes during Wars, Communism and Capitalism: Poland 1892-2015," PSE Working Papers halshs-02797835, HAL.
    12. Jin Seo Cho & Myung-Ho Park & Peter C. B. Phillips, 2018. "Practical Kolmogorov–Smirnov Testing by Minimum Distance Applied to Measure Top Income Shares in Korea," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(3), pages 523-537, July.
    13. Paweł Bukowski & Filip Novokmet, 2021. "Between communism and capitalism: long-term inequality in Poland, 1892–2015," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 26(2), pages 187-239, June.
    14. Pawel Bukowski & Filip Novokmet, 2017. "Top Incomes during Wars, Communism and Capitalism: Poland 1892-2015," World Inequality Lab Working Papers halshs-02797835, HAL.
    15. Bukowski, Pawel & Novokmet, Filip, 2021. "Between communism and capitalism: long-term inequality in Poland, 1892–2015," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 110221, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    16. Tuominen Elina, 2016. "Top-end inequality and growth: Empirical evidence," Working Papers 1608, Tampere University, Faculty of Management and Business, Economics.
    17. Bukowski, Pawel & Novokmet, Filip, 2017. "Top incomes during wars, communism and capitalism: Poland 1892-2015," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 101855, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    18. Piketty, Thomas & Bozio, Antoine & Garbinti, Bertrand & Goupille-Lebret, Jonathan & Guillot, Malka, 2020. "Predistribution vs. Redistribution: Evidence from France and the U.S," CEPR Discussion Papers 15415, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    19. Luis Bauluz & Sebastien Breau & Pawel Bukowski & Mark Fransham & Annie Seong Lee & Neil Lee & Margarita Lopez Forero & Clement Malgouyres & Filip Novokmet & Moritz Schularick & Gregory Verdugo, 2023. "Spatial wage inequality in North America and Western Europe: changes between and within local labour markets 1975-2019," CEP Discussion Papers dp1941, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    20. Alvaredo, Facundo & Cogneau, Denis & Piketty, Thomas, 2021. "Income inequality under colonial rule. Evidence from French Algeria, Cameroon, Tunisia, and Vietnam and comparisons with British colonies 1920–1960," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Distribution; Income taxation; South Africa; Top income shares;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D3 - Microeconomics - - Distribution
    • H0 - Public Economics - - General
    • N3 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy

    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:cpr:ceprdp:8155. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cepr.org .

    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.