This article is an overview of income inequality trends during the 1980s and 1990s and a discussion of their challenges to redistribution policies in Japan. The key results are summarized as follows. First, a widening disparity in market income for the working-age population has been driving...

Using kernel density estimation we find that over the 1990s business cycles in the United States and Great Britain the entire distribution of after-tax (disposable) income moved to the right while inequality declined. In contrast, Germany and Japan experienced less growth, a rise in inequality,...

We examine the long-term trend of income inequality and the effects of redistribution policies over the past two decades in Japan. The key findings are as follows. First, more than half of the widening inequality is attributable to population aging and declining household size. Notably, the...