Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/185298 
Year of Publication: 
2018
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 11838
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
This study provides new evidence on top income shares in Germany from the period of industrialization to the present. Income concentration was high in the nineteenth century, dropped sharply after World War I and during the hyperinflation years of the 1920s, and increased rapidly throughout the Nazi period beginning in the 1930s. Following the end of World War II, German top income shares returned to 1920s levels. The German pattern stands in sharp contrast to developments in France, the UK, and the US, where World War II brought a sizeable and lasting reduction in top income shares. Since the turn of the millennium, income concentration in Germany has been on the rise and is today among the highest in Europe. Regression analysis reveals that rising top income shares are positively associated with the capital share, trade and technological change.
Subjects: 
welfare state
income inequality
income distribution
top incomes
Germany
JEL: 
D31
D63
J31
N30
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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