Wealth Inequality in the United States since 1913: Evidence from Capitalized Income Tax Data *
中文摘要
本文将所得税申报表与宏观经济家庭资产负债表相结合，以估计1913年以来美国的财富分布。我们通过资本化个人纳税人申报的收入来估计财富，并对不产生应税收入的资产加以调整。我们在三个可以同时观察收入和财富的微观数据集中成功检验了我们的资本化方法：消费者金融调查、关联的遗产与所得税申报表以及基金会的税务记录。我们发现，财富集中度在20世纪初很高，从1929年到1978年下降，此后持续上升。前0.1%人群的财富份额已从1978年的7%上升至2012年的22%，几乎达到了1929年的水平。如今顶层财富持有者比20世纪60年代更年轻，且赚取了经济中劳动收入的更高比例。底层90%人群的财富份额最初上升至20世纪80年代中期，随后稳步下降。近几十年财富不平等的加剧是由于顶层收入的激增结合储蓄率不平等的上升所致。我们解释了我们的发现如何与消费者金融调查和遗产税数据相协调。
Abstract
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.