Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/185344
Year of Publication: 
2018
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 11884
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
This paper scrutinizes the conventional wisdom about trends in UK income inequality and also places contemporary inequality in a much longer historical perspective. We combine household survey and income tax data to provide better coverage of all income ranges from the bottom to the very top. We make a case for studying distributions of income between tax units (i.e. not assuming the full income sharing that goes with the use of the household as the unit of analysis) for reasons of principle as well as data harmonization. We present evidence that income inequality in the UK is as least as high today as it was just before the start of World War 2.
Subjects: 
inequality
tax unit
household
Gini coefficient
income tax data
household survey data
JEL: 
C46
C81
D31
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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