Journal ArticleDOI
Earnings Inequality and Mobility in the United States: Evidence from Social Security Data Since 1937
TLDR
This article used Social Security Administration longitudinal earnings micro data since 1937 to analyze the evolution of inequality and mobility in the United States and found that long-term mobility among all workers has increased since the 1950s but has slightly declined among men.Abstract:
This paper uses Social Security Administration longitudinal earnings micro data since 1937 to analyze the evolution of inequality and mobility in the United States. Annual earnings inequality is U-shaped, decreasing sharply up to 1953 and increasing steadily afterward. Short-term earnings mobility measures are stable over the full period except for a temporary surge during World War II. Virtually all of the increase in the variance in annual (log) earnings since 1970 is due to increase in the variance of permanent earnings (as opposed to transitory earnings). Mobility at the top of the earnings distribution is stable and has not mitigated the dramatic increase in annual earnings concentration since the 1970s. Long-term mobility among all workers has increased since the 1950s but has slightly declined among men. The decrease in the gender earnings gap and the resulting substantial increase in upward mobility over a lifetime for women are the driving force behind the increase in long-term mobility among all workers.read more
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Posted Content
About Capital in the Twenty-First Century
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present three key facts about income and wealth inequality in the long run emerging from my book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, and seek to sharpen and refocus the discussion about those trends.
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Top Incomes in the Long Run of History
TL;DR: A recent literature has constructed top income shares time series over the long run for more than twenty countries using income tax statistics as discussed by the authors, and the estimation methods and issues that arise when constructing top income share series, including income definition and comparability over time and across countries, tax avoidance and tax evasion.
Journal ArticleDOI
Top Incomes in the Long Run of History
TL;DR: A recent literature has constructed top income shares time series over the long run for more than twenty countries using income tax statistics as discussed by the authors, and the estimation methods and issues that arise when constructing top income share series, including income definition and comparability over time and across countries, tax avoidance and tax evasion.
Journal ArticleDOI
Women on Boards and Firm Financial Performance: A Meta-Analysis
Corinne Post,Kris Byron +1 more
TL;DR: This paper found that female board representation is positively related to accounting returns and that this relationship is more positive in countries with stronger shareholder protections, perhaps because shareholders motivate boards to use the different knowledge, experience, and values that each member brings.
Journal ArticleDOI
Distributional National Accounts: Methods and Estimates for the United States
TL;DR: This article used tax, survey, and national accounts data to estimate the distribution of national income in the United States since 1913, finding that income has boomed at the top and stagnated for the bottom 50% of the distribution at about $16,000 a year.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
Changes in Relative Wages, 1963–1987: Supply and Demand Factors
Lawrence F. Katz,Kevin M. Murphy +1 more
TL;DR: A simple supply and demand framework is used to analyze changes in the U.S. wage structure from 1963 to 1987 as discussed by the authors, showing that rapid secular growth in the demand for more-educated workers, "more-skilled" workers, and females appears to be the driving force behind observed changes in wage structure.
Journal ArticleDOI
Income Inequality in the United States, 1913–1998
Thomas Piketty,Emmanuel Saez +1 more
TL;DR: The authors showed 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 and argued that steep progressive income and estate taxation may have prevented large fortunes from fully recovering from these shocks.
Book ChapterDOI
Changes in the Wage Structure and Earnings Inequality
Lawrence F. Katz,David H. Autor +1 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a framework for understanding changes in the wage structure and overall earnings inequality, emphasizing the role of supply and demand factors and the interaction of market forces and labor market institutions.
Journal ArticleDOI
Trends in U.S. Wage Inequality: Revising the Revisionists
TL;DR: This paper found that the slowing of the growth of overall wage inequality in the 1990s hides a divergence in the paths of upper-tail (90/50) inequality and lower-tail inequality, even adjusting for changes in labor force composition.
Posted Content
Job Mobility and the Careers of Young Men
TL;DR: This paper studied the joint processes of job mobility and wage growth among young men drawn from the Longitudinal Employee-Employer Data and concluded that the process of job changing for young workers, while apparently haphazard, is a critical component of workers' move toward the stable employment relations that characterize mature careers.