RECENT TRENDS IN TOP INCOME SHARES IN THE UNITED STATES: RECONCILING ESTIMATES FROM MARCH CPS AND IRS TAX RETURN DATA

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Burkhauser, Richard V.; Feng, Shuaizhang; Jenkins, Stephen P.; Larrimore, Jeff
• 署名单位: Cornell University; University of Melbourne; Shanghai University of Finance & Economics; University of Essex
• 刊物名称: REVIEW OF ECONOMICS AND STATISTICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0034-6535
• DOI: 10.1162/REST_a_00200
• 发表日期: 2012-05
• 页码: 371-388
• 关键词: earnings inequality; truncation bias; EVOLUTION; Germany

摘要

Although most U.S. income inequality research is based on public use March CPS data, a new wave of research using IRS tax return data reports substantially faster inequality growth for recent years. We show that these apparently inconsistent estimates are largely reconciled when the income distribution and inequality are defined the same way. Using internal CPS data for 1967 to 2006, we show that CPS-based estimates of top income shares are similar to IRS data-based estimates reported by Piketty and Saez (2003). Our results imply that income inequality changes since 1993 are largely driven by changes in incomes of the top 1%.