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Levels and Trends in U.S. Income and its Distribution: A Crosswalk from Market Income towards a Comprehensive Haig‐Simons Income Approach
Author(s) -
Armour Philip,
Burkhauser Richard V.,
Larrimore Jeff
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
southern economic journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.762
H-Index - 58
eISSN - 2325-8012
pISSN - 0038-4038
DOI - 10.4284/0038-4038-2013.175
Subject(s) - gross income , economics , income distribution , comprehensive income , adjusted gross income , economic inequality , income inequality metrics , schema crosswalk , capital income , income shares , distribution (mathematics) , net national income , labour economics , passive income , inequality , international taxation , public economics , state income tax , tax reform , geography , mathematical analysis , pedestrian , mathematics , archaeology
Recent research on U.S. levels and trends in income inequality varies substantially based on how these studies measure income. We crosswalk (move between standards) from a market income of tax units to a more comprehensive measure of income including realized capital gains of households using a unified data set and replicate common findings in the literature. By using a comprehensive income definition in the spirit of Haig‐Simons, considering yearly accrued capital gains rather than focusing on the delayed reporting of capital gains that appear in Internal Revenue Service tax return data, the observed growth in income inequality and top income shares since 1989 is dramatically reduced.