Average real UK household income has almost doubled over the past forty years. With four decades of micro-data on household incomes, and relatively simple decomposition methods, we document the contribution to this growth in the mean net household income of working-age households from different...

We analyse income inequality in Great Britain over the period 1968-2009 in order to understand why income inequality rose very rapidly over the period 1978-91 and then stopped rising. We find that earnings inequality has risen fairly steadily since 1978, but other factors that caused inequality...

This Briefing Note provides an analysis of the characteristics of high-income individuals and how their incomes have evolved over time. We begin by setting out recent trends in overall income inequality and why these lead us to focus on the pattern of income growth at the very top of the income...

Average UK household income has almost doubled in real terms over the past forty years. This report asks 'From where has the growth in household income come?' and answers this by documenting and analysing the various factors that have contributed to this growth

We analyse income inequality in the UK from 1978 to 2009 in order to understand why income inequality rose very rapidly from 1978 to 1991 but then remained broadly unchanged. We find that inequality in earnings among employees has risen fairly steadily since 1978, but other factors that caused...

The relationship between economic growth and human development is complex, and even the relatively simple links between economic growth and people not having sufficient money for basic essentials such as food and medicines (known as income poverty) are not well understood. Increasingly urgent...

In this paper we look at lifetime inequality to address two main questions: How well does a modern tax system, based on annual information, target lifetime inequality? What aspects of the tranfser system are most progressive from a lifetime perspective? To answer to these questions it is crucial...