Income Inequality in the United States, 1913–1998

@article{Piketty2003IncomeII,
  title={Income Inequality in the United States, 1913–1998},
  author={Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez},
  journal={Quarterly Journal of Economics},
  year={2003},
  volume={118},
  pages={1-41}
}
This paper presents new homogeneous series on top shares of income and wages from 1913 to 1998 in the United States using individual tax returns data. Top income and wages shares display a U-shaped pattern over the century. Our series suggest that the large shocks that capital owners experienced during the Great Depression and World War II have had a permanent effect on top capital incomes. We argue that steep progressive income and estate taxation may have prevented large fortunes from fully… 
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References

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Income Inequality in France, 1901–1998

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  • Economics
    Journal of Political Economy
  • 2003
This paper uses data from income tax returns (1915–98), wage tax returns (1919–98), and inheritance tax returns (1902–94) in order to compute homogeneous, yearly estimates of income, wage, and wealth…

THREE CENTURIES OF INEQUALITY IN BRITAIN AND AMERICA

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This paper uses tax return data for the period 1951-1990 to investigate the rising share of adjusted gross income (AGI) that is reported on very high income tax returns. We find that most of this…

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