Reassessing the great compression among top earners: The overlooked role of taxation and self-employment
利用税收和普查数据的新方法，发现美国1918-1949年工资不平等在二战前未持续下降，战时下降主要由高收入者停滞和低收入者增长驱动，但高收入者表现不佳受税收变化导致的从工资就业转向自雇的组成效应影响，此前研究因此高估了工资压缩程度约30%。
This paper provides new estimates of wage inequality in the United States from 1918 to 1949, leveraging a novel top-income methodology that integrates both tax records and census data. Our analysis reveals no sustained decline in wage inequality before the Second World War but a marked decrease during the war years. This decline was driven primarily by stagnation among the top 1 % of earners and significant wage growth at the lower end of the income distribution. However, the relative underperformance of the top earners was largely influenced by a major compositional shift triggered by unprecedented increases in corporate and personal income tax rates. These tax changes led to a shift in business preferences toward partnerships, resulting in a substantial transition from salaried employment to self-employment. This shift, previously overlooked in inequality studies, resulted in a 30 % overestimation of wage compression, significantly altering the wage distribution dynamics of the 1940s.