Emmanuel Saez (UC-Berkeley, Economics) presents The Evolution of Income Concentration in Japan, 1887-2003: Evidence from Income Tax Statistics (with Chiaki Moriguchi (Northwestern University, Economics)) at the UC-Berkeley Department of Economics today at 2:00 – 4:00 pm PST. Here is the abstract:

Using income tax statistics, this paper presents long-run series of top income shares in Japan between 1885 and 1949 and of top wage income shares between 1951 and 2002. The data indicate that (1) throughout the pre-World War II period, Japan exhibited a high degree of income concentration comparable to the United States during the same period; (2) the top 1% income shares in Japan fell precipitously during World War II but not during the immediate postwar years; and (3) the top 1% wage income share in Japan has been relatively stable between 1951 and 2002, in contrast to the sharp increase in the top share in the United States after the 1970s. The paper evaluates the findings from historical and comparative perspectives and investigates the causes of the changes in income concentration.