Nothing Special   »   [go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp11884.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A Different Perspective on the Evolution of UK Income Inequality

Author

Listed:
  • Atkinson, Anthony B.

    (Nuffield College, Oxford)

  • Jenkins, Stephen P.

    (London School of Economics)

Abstract
This paper scrutinizes the conventional wisdom about trends in UK income inequality and also places contemporary inequality in a much longer historical perspective. We combine household survey and income tax data to provide better coverage of all income ranges from the bottom to the very top. We make a case for studying distributions of income between tax units (i.e. not assuming the full income sharing that goes with the use of the household as the unit of analysis) for reasons of principle as well as data harmonization. We present evidence that income inequality in the UK is as least as high today as it was just before the start of World War 2.

Suggested Citation

  • Atkinson, Anthony B. & Jenkins, Stephen P., 2018. "A Different Perspective on the Evolution of UK Income Inequality," IZA Discussion Papers 11884, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11884
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp11884.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Facundo Alvaredo & Anthony Atkinson & Lucas Chancel & Thomas Piketty & Emmanuel Saez & Gabriel Zucman, 2016. "Distributional National Accounts (DINA) Guidelines : Concepts and Methods used in WID.world," World Inequality Lab Working Papers halshs-02794308, HAL.
    2. Stephen P. Jenkins, 2017. "Pareto Models, Top Incomes and Recent Trends in UK Income Inequality," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 84(334), pages 261-289, April.
    3. Andrew Leigh, 2007. "How Closely Do Top Income Shares Track Other Measures of Inequality?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 117(524), pages 619-633, November.
    4. Alissa Goodman & Steven Webb, 1994. "For richer, for poorer: the changing distribution of income in the United Kingdom, 1961-91," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 15(4), pages 29-62, November.
    5. Anthony Atkinson & Thomas Piketty, 2007. "Top incomes over the twentieth century: A contrast between continental european and english-speaking countries," Post-Print halshs-00754859, HAL.
    6. Editorial Article, 0. "The Information for Authors," Economics of Contemporary Russia, Regional Public Organization for Assistance to the Development of Institutions of the Department of Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, issue 2.
    7. Blundell, Richard & Joyce, Robert & Norris Keiller, Agnes & Ziliak, James P., 2018. "Income inequality and the labour market in Britain and the US," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 48-62.
    8. Alvaredo, Facundo, 2011. "A note on the relationship between top income shares and the Gini coefficient," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 110(3), pages 274-277, March.
    9. Gazeley, Ian & Newell, Andrew T. & Reynolds, Kevin & Rufrancos, Hector Gutierrez, 2017. "What Really Happened to British Inequality in the Early 20th Century? Evidence from National Household Expenditure Surveys 1890–1961," IZA Discussion Papers 11071, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Richard V Burkhauser & Nicolas Hérault & Stephen P Jenkins & Roger Wilkins, 2018. "Top incomes and inequality in the UK: reconciling estimates from household survey and tax return data," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 70(2), pages 301-326.
    11. Editorial Article, 0. "The Information for Authors," Economics of Contemporary Russia, Regional Public Organization for Assistance to the Development of Institutions of the Department of Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, issue 4.
    12. Editorial Article, 0. "The Information for Authors," Economics of Contemporary Russia, Regional Public Organization for Assistance to the Development of Institutions of the Department of Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, issue 3.
    13. Editorial Article, 0. "The Information for Authors," Economics of Contemporary Russia, Regional Public Organization for Assistance to the Development of Institutions of the Department of Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, issue 1.
    14. Atkinson, A. B. & Piketty, Thomas (ed.), 2007. "Top Incomes Over the Twentieth Century: A Contrast Between Continental European and English-Speaking Countries," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199286881.
    15. Editorial Article, 0. "The Information for Authors," Economics of Contemporary Russia, Regional Public Organization for Assistance to the Development of Institutions of the Department of Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, issue 4.
    16. Editorial Article, 0. "The Information for Authors," Economics of Contemporary Russia, Regional Public Organization for Assistance to the Development of Institutions of the Department of Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, issue 3.
    17. Editorial Article, 0. "The Information for Authors," Economics of Contemporary Russia, Regional Public Organization for Assistance to the Development of Institutions of the Department of Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, issue 2.
    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. Chrysovalantis Amountzias, 2024. "Market power and income disparities: How can firms influence the gap between capital and labor earnings," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 76(3), pages 861-888, July.
    2. Advani, Arun & Burgherr, David & Savage, Mike & Summers, Andrew, 2022. "The UK’s global economic elite: a sociological analysis using tax data," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 114607, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    3. Andrew Seltzer & Martin Shanahan & Claire Wright, 2022. "The Rise and Fall and Rise (?) of Economic History in Australia," CEH Discussion Papers 05, Centre for Economic History, Research School of Economics, Australian National University.
    4. Advani, Arun & Summers, Andy & Tarrant, Hannah, 2022. "Measuring top income shares in the UK," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 610, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    5. Branko Milanovic, 2022. "After the Financial Crisis: The Evolution of the Global Income Distribution Between 2008 and 2013," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 68(1), pages 43-73, March.
    6. Advani, Arun & Summers, Andy & Tarrant, Hannah, 2020. "Measuring UK top incomes," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 490, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    7. Jenkins, Stephen P., 2022. "Getting the Measure of Inequality," IZA Discussion Papers 14996, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    8. Christopher Wimer & Zachary Parolin & Anny Fenton & Liana Fox & Christopher Jencks, 2020. "The Direct Effect of Taxes and Transfers on Changes in the U.S. Income Distribution, 1967–2015," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 57(5), pages 1833-1851, October.
    9. Tahnee Christelle Ooms, 2021. "Correcting the Underestimation of Capital Incomes in Inequality Indicators: with an Application to the UK, 1997–2016," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 157(3), pages 929-953, October.
    10. Slawomir Pastuszka & Katarzyna Pastuszka, 2022. "Cohesion or In-cohesion of Economic and Social Development of the UK's Regions," European Research Studies Journal, European Research Studies Journal, vol. 0(2), pages 3-18.
    11. Ian Gazeley & Andrew Newell & Kevin Reynolds & Hector Rufrancos, 2024. "Household structure, labour participation, and economic inequality in Britain, 1937–61," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 77(1), pages 41-59, February.
    12. Ooms, Tahnee, 2021. "Correcting the underestimation of capital incomes in inequality indicators: with an application to the UK, 1997–2016," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 108900, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.

    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. Kritana Prueksakorn & Cheng-Xu Piao & Hyunchul Ha & Taehyeung Kim, 2015. "Computational and Experimental Investigation for an Optimal Design of Industrial Windows to Allow Natural Ventilation during Wind-Driven Rain," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 7(8), pages 1-22, August.
    2. Hualin Xie & Jinlang Zou & Hailing Jiang & Ning Zhang & Yongrok Choi, 2014. "Spatiotemporal Pattern and Driving Forces of Arable Land-Use Intensity in China: Toward Sustainable Land Management Using Emergy Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 6(6), pages 1-17, May.
    3. Stephan E. Maurer & Andrei V. Potlogea, 2021. "Male‐biased Demand Shocks and Women's Labour Force Participation: Evidence from Large Oil Field Discoveries," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 88(349), pages 167-188, January.
    4. Tie Hua Zhou & Ling Wang & Keun Ho Ryu, 2015. "Supporting Keyword Search for Image Retrieval with Integration of Probabilistic Annotation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 7(5), pages 1-18, May.
    5. T. Karski, 2019. "Opinions and Controversies in Problem of The So-Called Idiopathic Scoliosis. Information About Etiology, New Classification and New Therapy," Biomedical Journal of Scientific & Technical Research, Biomedical Research Network+, LLC, vol. 12(5), pages 9612-9616, January.
    6. Wesley Mendes-da-Silva, 2020. "What Makes an Article be More Cited?," RAC - Revista de Administração Contemporânea (Journal of Contemporary Administration), ANPAD - Associação Nacional de Pós-Graduação e Pesquisa em Administração, vol. 24(6), pages 507-513.
    7. Wisdom Akpalu & Mintewab Bezabih, 2015. "Tenure Insecurity, Climate Variability and Renting out Decisions among Female Small-Holder Farmers in Ethiopia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 7(6), pages 1-16, June.
    8. Wei Chen & Shu-Yu Liu & Chih-Han Chen & Yi-Shan Lee, 2011. "Bounded Memory, Inertia, Sampling and Weighting Model for Market Entry Games," Games, MDPI, vol. 2(1), pages 1-13, March.
    9. David Harborth & Sebastian Pape, 2020. "Empirically Investigating Extraneous Influences on the “APCO” Model—Childhood Brand Nostalgia and the Positivity Bias," Future Internet, MDPI, vol. 12(12), pages 1-16, December.
    10. Taeyeoun Roh & Yujin Jeong & Byungun Yoon, 2017. "Developing a Methodology of Structuring and Layering Technological Information in Patent Documents through Natural Language Processing," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(11), pages 1-19, November.
    11. He-Yau Kang & Amy H. I. Lee & Tzu-Ting Huang, 2016. "Project Management for a Wind Turbine Construction by Applying Fuzzy Multiple Objective Linear Programming Models," Energies, MDPI, vol. 9(12), pages 1-15, December.
    12. Haiyan Xu & Yanhui Ding & Jing Sun & Kun Zhao & Yuanjian Chen, 2019. "Dynamic Group Recommendation Based on the Attention Mechanism," Future Internet, MDPI, vol. 11(9), pages 1-15, September.
    13. Adina Letiţia Negruşa & Valentin Toader & Aurelian Sofică & Mihaela Filofteia Tutunea & Rozalia Veronica Rus, 2015. "Exploring Gamification Techniques and Applications for Sustainable Tourism," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 7(8), pages 1-30, August.
    14. Ahmad N. Alkenani & Mohammad Ashraf & Ghulam Mohammad, 2020. "Quantum Codes from Constacyclic Codes over the Ring F q [ u 1 , u 2 ]/〈 u 1 2 - u 1 , u 2 2 - u 2 , u 1 u 2 - u 2 u 1 〉," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 8(5), pages 1-11, May.
    15. Shang-Yuan Chen & Jui-Ting Huang, 2012. "A Smart Green Building: An Environmental Health Control Design," Energies, MDPI, vol. 5(5), pages 1-16, May.
    16. Yanhong Feng & Xu Yu & Gai-Ge Wang, 2019. "A Novel Monarch Butterfly Optimization with Global Position Updating Operator for Large-Scale 0-1 Knapsack Problems," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 7(11), pages 1-31, November.
    17. Xiaoshu Cao & Feiwen Liang & Huiling Chen & Yongwei Liu, 2017. "Circuity Characteristics of Urban Travel Based on GPS Data: A Case Study of Guangzhou," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(11), pages 1-21, November.
    18. S. B. Reshetnikov & M. R. Skirdov, 2017. "Analysis of methodological approaches to determination and assessment of the human capital," Russian Journal of Industrial Economics, MISIS, vol. 10(1).
    19. Mi Jung Son & Jin Han Park & Ka Hyun Ko, 2019. "Some Hesitant Fuzzy Hamacher Power-Aggregation Operators for Multiple-Attribute Decision-Making," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 7(7), pages 1-33, July.
    20. Kerestes, Daniel E. & Easter, K. William, 1981. "A Review And An Annotated Bibliography Of Studies Of Soil Conservation Programs, Practices And Strategies," Staff Papers 13988, University of Minnesota, Department of Applied Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    income tax data; Gini coefficient; household; tax unit; inequality; household survey data;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C46 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods: Special Topics - - - Specific Distributions
    • C81 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Data Collection and Data Estimation Methodology; Computer Programs - - - Methodology for Collecting, Estimating, and Organizing Microeconomic Data; Data Access
    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:iza:izadps:dp11884. 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: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.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.