Trends in Us Income and Wealth Inequality: Revising after the Revisionists
Trends in Us Income and Wealth Inequality: Revising after the Revisionists
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美国收入和财富不平等的趋势：修正主义者之后的修正
DOI：
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发表时间：
2020
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
G. Zucman
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Emmanuel Saez;G. Zucman
最近的研究认为，美国不平等的增加比之前认为的要少，特别是由于顶层财富和资本收入的增长更为温和(Smith等人，2019年；Smith，Zidar和Zwick，2020；Auten和Splint，2019年)。我们逐点审查了这些论文中的主张，将真正的改进与在我们看来没有很好的经验或概念基础的论点分开。我们对这些工作进行了评估，并考虑到了其他改进，全面更新了我们对美国收入和财富不平等的估计。尽管修正主义者提出的一些观点是有价值的，但这篇文献的核心量化发现似乎没有数据支持。Smith等人估计的私人企业收入中资本份额较低。(2019)与这些业务较大的股本存量不一致。在Smith、Zidar和Zwick(2020)中，分配给富人的利率高于收入和财富都可以观察到的数据集，导致顶级财富份额向下倾斜；几乎只使用股息对股票进行资本化，相对于福布斯400强大大低估了亿万富翁的财富。在奥滕和斯普林特(2019年)，收入最高的1%但不应纳税的商业利润(特别是由于慷慨的折旧规则)被归类为逃税；然后，根据对随机审计数据的错误读取，逃税被分配给收入最低的99%。我们修订后的系列显示了类似于Saez和Zucman(2016)以及Piketty，Saez和Zucman(2018)的不平等加剧，同时允许更细粒度地描述顶层财富和收入的构成。
Recent studies argue that US inequality has increased less than previously thought, in particular due to a more modest rise of wealth and capital income at the top (Smith et al., 2019; Smith, Zidar and Zwick, 2020; Auten and Splinter, 2019). We examine the claims made in these papers point by point, separating genuine improvements from arguments that do not appear to us well grounded empirically or conceptually. Taking stock of this body of work, and factoring in other improvements, we provide a comprehensive update of our estimates of US income and wealth inequality. Although some of the points raised by the revisionists are valuable, the core quantitative findings of this literature do not appear to be supported by the data. The low capital share of private business income estimated in Smith et al. (2019) is not consistent with the large capital stock of these businesses. In Smith, Zidar and Zwick (2020), the interest rate assigned to the wealthy is higher than in the datasets where both income and wealth can be observed, leading to downward biased top wealth shares; capitalizing equities using almost only dividends dramatically underestimates the wealth of billionaires relative to the Forbes 400. In Auten and Splinter (2019), business profits earned by the top 1% but not taxable (due in particular to generous depreciation rules) are classified as tax evasion; tax evasion is then allocated to the bottom 99% based on an erroneous reading of random audit data. Our revised series show a rise of inequality similar to Saez and Zucman (2016) and Piketty, Saez, and Zucman (2018) while allowing for a more granular depiction of the composition of wealth and income at the top.