“The World Top Incomes Database” - new website by F. Alvaredo, T. Atkinson, T. Piketty and E. Saez
This article has
been written in 2011: nowadays, the WTID is called “World Wealth and Income
Database” and is available at http://g-mond.parisschoolofeconomics.eu/wid/
The PSE
page dedicated to the WID is here
Presented for the
first time in January 2011 during the conference by T. Atkinson and T. Piketty given at PSE within the
G-MonD, this website has since experienced growing success. Built
to accompany the publishing of the two books Top Incomes : a Global
Perspective (2010) and Top Incomes over the
XXth Century (2007), this website offers
unique series of database.
In their second book, the authors analyse long term
evolution of top incomes in 12 new countries (after the ten ones analysed in
the 2007 book). It revitalizes completely our knowledge of the dynamics of inequalities and
reconsiders radically the optimistic hypothesis of Kuznets on the link between
economic development and the sharing of incomes.