Income inequality in the first half of the nineteenth century

The authors show that income was substantially more concentrated at the top of the income distribution in 1911 than previous estimates suggest, and that the top 1 per cent were the principal “losers” in the subsequent trend towards reduced income inequality. They also find that policy shocks, policy-responses, & non-market mechanisms created more equal distribution (1911-49) and enabled governments to tax the rich and limit the “offshoring” of their wealth through capital controls and other means. Since this period the return to globalisation has had the opposite effect, both for high worth individuals and corporations.