Richness in Germany : High Incomes, Their Structure and Distribution - A Microanalysis with the German Income Tax Statictics for Self-Employed and Employees

The distribution of societal wealth and income is of central importance for the economic, social and cultural development of a country. Independent of the respective economic and social scientific perspective the income distribution is a central brick explaining economic growth and labour market development.This article's income distribution contribution is by pinpointing the situation of the income rich. Sound information about high income, its structure and distribution is presented based on the anonymized individual records of the income tax statistics 1995 for the first time. Embedded in a distributional analysis over the entire income range the paper concentrates on the distribution and re-distribution of high income by different ‘richness'-definitions for self-employed and employees. In addition the socioeconomic structure of the rich compared to the non-rich is described. The significance of the competiting patterns in explaining the probability to be rich is finally shown by a multivariate PROBITanalysis. The paper is a revised and compressed version of my contribution to the first poverty and Wealth Report of the German government