À la recherche du 1% : que nous apprennent les travaux d’Atkinson, Piketty et Saez sur la concentration des hauts revenus ?

Abstract

Income inequalities are increasing in most advanced countries and most of the wealth has become concentrated at the top of the social pyramid. Institutionalist and market-based theories, the two main schools of thought on the subject, struggle to explain why the rise in income inequality is mainly concentrated in the most fortunate percentile. Based on this observation, Atkinson, Piketty and Saez have opened a new field of study specifically on top incomes (severely underestimated in surveys), based on tax statistics. This article presents a critical overview of their assumptions, their methodology and results.

Keywords

• economic inequality
• top revenues
• taxation