"Top Incomes in the Long Run of History" with Tony Atkinson and

52Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. XLIX (March 2011)CountryTable 9Summary of Changes in Shares of Top “Next 4 Percent” and “Second Vintile” (continued)“Next 4percent”“Secondvintile”Text commentsSingapore 1974 12.3 1974 7.9 “Over a thirty year period there was broad stability of the2005 14.6 2005 9.5 very top income shares. Ar the same time there was somechange lower down the distribution” (Atkinson 2010).Sweden 1919 14.9 1919 10.7 “Looking first at the decline over the first eighty years of the1949 12.3 1949 10.5century, we see that virtually all of the fall in the top decileincome share is due to a decrease in the very top of the2005 11.1 2005 9.6 distribution. The income share for the lower half of the topdecile (P90–95) has been remarkably stable” (Roine andWaldenstrom 2009)Finland 1920 18.3 — “Compared with top one per cent group, the income shares of1949 13.0 — percentile groups within the rest of the 10 per cent has risen1992 12.1 —relatively modestly over the last ten years” (Janti et al. 2010)1965 10.7 1965 9.82004 9.5 2004 8.7Norway 1913 12.4 1913 9.3 “Whereas the share of the top 1 per cent rose by some 7 percentagepoints between 1991 and 2004, the share of the next1949 13.2 1949 11.92005 11.3 2005 9.44 per cent increased by only about 2 percentage points, andthere was virtually no rise in the share of those in the [secondvintile]” (Aaberge and Atkinson 2010)Spain 1981 13.6 1981 11.5 “the increase in income concentration which took place in2005 13.4 2005 11.0 Spain since 1981 has been a phenomenon concentrated withinthe top 1% of the distribution” (Alvaredo and Saez 2009)Portugal 1976 11.0 1976 8.8 “in Portugal, all groups within the top decile display important2003 15.6 2003 11.7increases” (Alvaredo 2009)Italy 1974 12.4 1974 10.6 “the increase in income concentration which took place in2004 12.3 2004 10.3 Italy since the mid 1980s has been a phenomenon happeningwithin the top 5% of the distribution” (Alvaredo and Pisano2010)Source: Atkinson and Piketty (2007, 2010).have particularly affected this group. Forsome countries, the “next 4 percent” exhibitsome of the same features as the top 1 percent(as in the United Kingdom in recentdecades), so that it would be fairer to talk ofconcentration among the top 5 percent, buttypically the second vingtile group does notshare the same experience. In other cases,like China, it is a matter of degree. But this isnot universal and, in table 9, we have shownin italics the four cases (Germany, Japan,Singapore, and Portugal) where there havebeen changes in the next 4 percent and below.Being in the top 1 percent does not necessarilyimply being rich and there are alsomarked differences within this group. Thevery rich are different from the rich. Wehave earlier considered the top 0.1 percent