Distributional National Accounts (DINA) for Germany, 1992-2016

This paper presents Distributional National Accounts (DINA) for Germany from 1992 to 2016. We combine personal income tax files with SOEP survey data to estimate the distribution of national income following the DINA method established by Piketty et al. (2018). We find that economic growth in Germany has been pro-rich from 1992 to 2007 and pro-poor from 2007 to 2016. But despite rising labor incomes for the bottom 50% since 2007, the income gap between the bottom 50% and the top 10% has widened. The polarization is driven by continuously increasing labor income of the lower 9% of the top decile (P90-99). The top 0.1% receives ca. 7% of national income, which is similar to the United States and twice as high as in France