2019/10/01 by Ignacio Flores, Claudia Sanhueza, Jorge Atria +1 · 115 citations
Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Social Sciences · #Democracy #Demographic economics #Development economics #Dictatorship #Economic Theory and Policy #Economic inequality #Economics #Fiscal Policy and Economic Growth #Income distribution #Income, Poverty, and Inequality #Inequality #Latin Americans #Macroeconomics #Measures of national income and output #Political science #Politics
paper · doi:10.1111/roiw.12441
published in Review of Income and Wealth 66(4), 850-874 (Wiley)
openalex publication_date 2019/10/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/27
We present a novel series of Chilean top‐income shares covering half a century, mainly based on income‐tax declarations and the National Accounts. Such a time frame of analysis is still rare in the literature of developing countries. We distinguish between a fiscal‐income series (1964–2017) and an adjusted series (1990–2017). The former covers individual income, while the latter also includes corporate undistributed profits, which affects both levels and trends. The fiscal‐income estimates start with low levels and a decreasing trend over the 1960s. They then increase rapidly during the dictatorship years (1973–89). The series ends with a high, yet slowly decreasing, concentration for most of the recent democratic period (1990–2017). By contrast, the adjusted series has followed a U‐shape since the return of democracy, contradicting the established consensus on falling inequality over the period. Furthermore, Chile ranks among the most unequal countries in both the OECD and Latin American countries over the period.