Earnings Inequality and Mobility in the United States, 1937-2004: Evidence from Social Security Administration Data

研究机构：美国国家经济研究局国家科学基金会项目：经济学首席研究员：Saez， Emmanuel题目：1937-2004年美国收入不平等与流动性：来自社会保障管理数据的证据【摘要】收入不平等的来源和后果一直是经济学家、工会、政党和政策制定者非常关注的问题。然而，大多数关于收入不平等的研究要么集中在横截面数据上，要么集中在非常短的时间序列数据上，因此无法提供不平等如何影响流动性的长期观点。本研究将利用社会保障局的大量纵向数据，调查自1937年以来美国收入不平等和流动性的演变。该研究还将研究自1937年以来，收入流动性如何影响美国收入不平等的变化，并解释影响流动性和收入不平等的因素。大样本将允许PI测试已广泛用于较小数据集的结构迁移模型是否被很好地指定。最后，这些数据将被用来阐明在1986年对高收入人群大幅减税后，人们观察到的最高工资收入激增背后的机制。本研究将根据年龄、性别和种族血统，创建一系列新的美国1937-2004年期间收入流动性和不平等的综合衡量指标。社会保障局的收入数据比任何现有的调查数据都要大得多，也准确得多，而且从来没有被用来产生这样的系统序列。在社会保障局通过必要的保密审查后，制定的一系列总结措施将向其他研究人员公开。这些同质数据的可用性不仅可以让研究人员，还可以让政策制定者、媒体和更广泛的公众讨论和评论收入不平等和流动性问题，跨越性别和种族血统。因此，这项研究将具有重要的政策应用价值。

Proposal No: 0617737 Institution: NBER NSF Program: ECONOMICS Principal Investigator: Saez, Emmanuel Title: Earnings Inequality and Mobility in the United States, 1937-2004: Evidence from Social Security Administration Data ABSTRACTThe sources and consequences of income inequality has been of great concern for economists, labor unions, political parties, and policy makers alike. Yet most of the work on income inequality has either focused on cross section data or very short time series data, thus not being able to provide a long term view of how inequality affects mobility. This proposed research will investigate the evolution of earnings inequality and mobility in the United States since 1937 using a large longitudinal data from the Social Security Administration. The study will also study how income mobility affects changes in income inequality in the United States since 1937 as well as account for the factors the affect mobility and the inequality of earnings. The large sample will allow the PI to test whether structural mobility models that have been used extensively with smaller datasets are well specified. Finally, the data will be used to cast light on the mechanisms behind the surge in top wage incomes that has been observed after the large tax rate cut on high earnings of 1986. This research will create a new series of summary measures of earnings mobility and inequality in the United States for the period 1937-2004, decomposed by age, gender, and ethnic origin. The Social Security Administration earnings data is much larger and accurate than any existing survey data to estimate such series, and have never been used to produce such systematic series. The series of summary measures created will be made publicly available to other researchers, after the Social Security Administration clears it of the necessary confidentiality review. The availability of such homogeneous data will allow not only researchers but also policy makers, the press, and the broader public to discuss and comment on issues of earnings inequality and mobility over time, across gender and ethnic origin lines. This research will therefore have important policy applications.