Conference Agenda

In this paper, we consider the income distribution of Japanese high-income earners using micro tax data provided by National Tax Agency for the first time in Japan.

While wage income is the most important income for most of high-income earners, stock capital gains are the most important income for the very top high-income earners. Pareto coefficient of total income in Japan is about 1.45 in 2020. This is much lower than the previous estimates of Pareto coefficients 2.1 in 2003. Different from the existing studies based on data without capital gains, our lower Pareto coefficient estimate shows income concentration toward the super-rich in Japan. The tax burden rate increases with income until about 100 million Japanese yen but decreases beyond it. This regressivity occurs since Japanese income tax system imposes lower tax on capital income. To restore income redistribution function, capital income tax rate should be raised in Japan.

This paper examines income inequality and dynamics in France, using exhaustive administrative panel data. We find that the market income distribution is highly unequal, with the top 1% receiving around 6% of the income. Income mobility is characterized by strong persistence at all income levels and for all age groups. Using a non-parametric framework that accounts for differences in income risk along the market income distribution, we reveal significant differences in income growth moments. Our findings indicate that the distribution of growth rates has high variance, excess skewness, and fat tails. We also investigate the role of redistribution as an insurance tool against income risk and find that transfers are particularly pivotal in reducing income risk for the lower part of the income distribution. We show substantial heterogeneity in income risk across locations, education and occupation groups, and the share of capital in total income.

In recent years, the use of both individual tax data and national accounts data to study United States income inequality has been controversial, and one important piece of this controversy is the role of corporate income and the corporate sector. We provide a framework for thinking about the historical and conceptual relationship between income, inequality, and the corporate sector. We make several contributions. First, we assemble a variety of previously unused data to study the corporate sector in the long run. Second, we survey important long-run sectoral and legal changes to the allocation of income between the individual and corporate sector and the study of inequality. Third, we show that inequality measures are sensitive to how corporate income is imputed to individuals, and that the primary methods used in existing literature may understate top income shares before 1986.

This paper presents distributional national accounts for Honduras over 2003- 2019, using survey microdata, administrative tax records, and national account aggregates. It assembles comprehensive data on formal income for high-income individuals, including information on corporate shareholders, which allows cor- porate profits to be assigned to their owners. The estimates suggest a high and persistent inequality in the country: the top 1 percent highest earners received approximately 30 percent of the total income over the period, placing Honduras among the most unequal countries in the world. Undistributed corporate profits are the overwhelming income source at the very top of the distribution, highlight- ing its importance in the measurement of income inequality. Finally, using a panel of tax records, the paper also documents that not only is inequality persistent, but the same individuals are often observed at the top, suggesting that the observed inequality has deep roots.