<i>Homoploutia</i>: Top Labor and Capital Incomes in the United States, 1950

Homoploutia: Top Labor and Capital Incomes in the United States, 1950–2020

Published:2023-10-03 Issue: Volume: Page:
ISSN:0034-6586
Container-title:Review of Income and Wealth
language:en
Short-container-title:Review of Income and Wealth

Author:

Berman Yonatan¹²³,Milanovic Branko³⁴

Affiliation:

1. Department of Political Economy King's College London

2. Stone Center on Socio‐Economic Inequality City University of New York

3. International Inequalities Institute London School of Economics

4. Graduate Center City University of New York

Abstract

Homoploutia describes the situation in which the same people are rich in the space of capital and labor income. We combine survey and administrative data to document the evolution of homoploutia in the United States since 1950. In 1950, 10 percent of top decile capital‐income earners were also in the top decile of labor income. Today, this indicator is 30 percent. This makes the traditional division to capitalists and laborers less relevant today. We find that the increase in homoploutia accounts for 20 percent of the increase in interpersonal income inequality since 1986.

Publisher

Wiley

Subject

Economics and Econometrics

Link

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/roiw.12659

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