April 30, 2009
Emmanuel Saez has just won the John Bates Clark medal. (For flavor: past winners include Robert Solow, Milton Friedman, Paul Krugman, James Heckman, and Lawrence Summers.) The picture above shows the share of income enjoyed by the top 10 percent of the population. It illustrates what economists call the “great compression”: the extraordinary equalization of incomes that took place during the second world war — a compression in the distribution of incomes that remained remarkably stable until the business offensive and the arrival of the New Right in Reagan-Volcker era. It is Figure 1 from Saez’s QJE (2003) paper on income inequality in the US over the long-run.

Emmanuel Saez has just won the John Bates Clark medal.

(For flavor: past winners include Robert Solow, Milton Friedman, Paul Krugman, James Heckman, and Lawrence Summers.)

The picture above shows the share of income enjoyed by the top 10 percent of the population.

It illustrates what economists call the “great compression”: the extraordinary equalization of incomes that took place during the second world war — a compression in the distribution of incomes that remained remarkably stable until the business offensive and the arrival of the New Right in Reagan-Volcker era.

It is Figure 1 from Saez’s QJE (2003) paper on income inequality in the US over the long-run.

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  1. workingweek posted this