Top Incomes in Indonesia, 1920-2004
Files
Date
2007-03
Authors
Leigh, Andrew
van der Eng, Pierre
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), Research School of Social Sciences, The Australian National University
Abstract
Using taxation and household survey data, this paper estimates top income shares for
Indonesia during 1920-2004. Our results suggest that top income shares grew during the
1920s and 1930s, but fell in the post-war era. In more recent decades, we observe a sharp
rise in top income shares during the late-1990s, coincident with the economic downturn,
and some evidence that top income shares fell in the early-2000s. For pre-war Indonesia,
we decompose top income shares by income source, and find that for groups below the top
0.5 percent, a majority of income was derived from wages. Throughout the twentieth
century, top income shares in Indonesia have been higher than in India, broadly comparable
to Japan, and somewhat lower than levels prevailing in the United States.
Description
Keywords
inequality, top incomes, personal income taxation, Indonesia
Citation
Source
Type
Working/Technical Paper
Book Title
Top Incomes: a Global Perspective
Entity type
Access Statement
Open Access