This study estimates the impact of financial deregulation on top income shares. Using the novel econometric method of constructing synthetic control groups, we show that the "Big Bang"-deregulations in the United Kingdom in 1986 and Japan 1997-1999 increased the share of pre-tax incomes going to...

The paper uses a combination of micro-level datasets to document the rise of income polarization - what some have referred to as the 'hollowing out' of the income distribution - in the United States, since the 1970s. While in the initial decades more middle-income households moved up, rather...