Income Distribution in Historical-International Perspective

Nicholas Gruen posts on income distribution in historical international perspective:

Nicholas Gruen: Here’s a diagram from a recent paper (pdf) [by Roine and Waldenström] on the Swedish distribution of income. It shows that the kinds of income distribution through time that Andrew Leigh and Anthony Atkinson came up with for Australia and NZ are typical of most western countries. It also shows that you can lean pretty successfully against the wind - as the Swedes have. And also that you can lean pretty ineffectively against the wind - like the French have. I’ve asked the authors of the paper for a better resolution picture - but I think it’s fairly clear even in it’s somewhat foggy state.

It's as Piketty and Saez said: the advent of social democracy is found everywhere in the industrial world; the more recent coming of the Second Gilded Age is primarily an Anglo-Saxon phenomenon.