Recent debate has suggested that growing levels or high levels of inequality may be systematically associated with the occurrence of banking crises. Using the updated version of the Chartbook of Economic Inequality, this paper provides new empirical evidence on the `level' hypothesis and...

This paper is prepared as a chapter for the Handbook of Income Distribution, Volume 2 (edited by A. B. Atkinson and F. Bourguignon, Elsevier-North Holland, forthcoming). Like the other chapters in the volume (and its predecessor), the aim is to provide a comprehensive review of a particular area...

Despite its relevance in 19th-century economics, wealth -its accumulation, composition, and distribution- has largely been neglected in Italian economic history. Filling this gap, we show that between the late 19th and mid-20th centuries, Italy presented a historically high value of total...

Detailed distributional estimates at finer geographical levels remain scarce, despite their critical relevance for household well being and policy intervention. This paper leverages Italian income tax records dating back to 1976 focusing on top income concentration and inequality across the...

The paper uses the flexibility of household survey data to align their income categories and recipient units with the income categories and units found in data produced by tax authorities. Our analyses, based on a standardized definition of fiscal income, allow us to locate, for top-income...

The purpose of this Chartbook is to present a summary of evidence about long-run changes in economic inequality – primarily income, earnings, and wealth – for 25 countries covering more than one hundred years. There is a range of countries and they account for more than a third of the...

This paper studies the estimation of wealth distribution using estates left at death. We establish formal conditions for adopting a simplied version of the classic estate multi- plier method, using only minimal information on estates and mortality. We empirically validate these conditions and...

Sustainability for a society means long-term viability, but also the ability to cope with economic crises and disasters. Just as with natural disasters, we can minimize the chance of them occurring and set in place policies to protect the world’s citizens against their consequences. This paper...

Recent research highlighted controversy about the evolution of concentration of personal wealth. In this paper we provide new evidence about the long-run evolution of top wealth shares for the United Kingdom. The new series covers a long period – from 1895 to the present – and has a...