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Saez's contribution to economics was a novel way to measure income inequality of really small percentages (top 1%, 0.1% etc.) of the population. That's why it's
by JDShu 14y ago
Saez's contribution to economics was a novel way to measure income inequality of really small percentages (top 1%, 0.1% etc.) of the population. That's why it's hard to find other studies. He wasn't "being a hack" he was doing research in a topic that he found interesting. His work by the way, won him the prestigious John Bates Clark medal so we can infer that his work is respected in economic circles.
By the way, if you took the data from the census and measured wealth instead of income, you would get a far more extreme differences in inequality. This makes sense of course, since wealthier people have more money in the stock market.
You are correct that the rich lost a lot during the stock market crash in 2008, but it similarly recovers quickly as the market rallied. Again, this is a natural effect of wealthier people having more money in the stock market.
- twoodfin 14y agoSaez's contribution to economics was a novel way to measure income inequality of really small percentages (top 1%, 0.1% etc.) of the population. That may be, but income statistics like the one cited here don't require anything novel: The IRS publishes everything you'd need to know.
- JDShu 14y agoNo it doesn't, that's the point. The IRS publishes the top 1% and I believe the top 0.1%, but it does not cover the top 0.01% which you cited.
- twoodfin 14y agohttp://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/08in12ms.xls http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/08in12ms.xls Try dividing the number of $10M+ earners by the total number of taxable returns. You'll get a number surprisingly close to .01%.
- JDShu 14y agoYes, what Piketty and Saez did was a more sophisticated operation on IRS data to get a time series so that we can measure exactly how the top 0.01% etc. did. Here's the link to the paper if you want the details. http://elsa.berkeley.edu/~saez/ http://elsa.berkeley.edu/~saez/