Top incomes and earnings in Portugal 1936-2004

This paper analyzes income and earnings concentration in Portugal from a long-run perspective using personal income and wage tax statistics. Our results suggest that income concentration was much higher during the 1930s and early 1940s than it is today. Top income shares estimated from reported incomes deteriorated during the Second World War, even if Portugal did not take active participation in the conflict. However, the magnitude of the drop was less important than in other European countries. The level of concentration between 1950 and 1970 remained relatively high compared to countries such as Spain, France, UK or the United States. The decrease in income concentration, started very moderately at the end of the 1960s and which accelerated after the revolution of 1974, began to be reversed during the first half of the 1980s. During the last fifteen years top income shares have increased steadily. The rise in wage concentration contributed to this process in a significant way. The evidence since 1989 suggests that the level of marginal tax rate at the top has not been the primary determinant of the level of top reported incomes. Marginal rates have stayed constant in a context of growing top shares. ; Ce travail présente des séries sur les hauts revenus et les hauts salaires en Portugal entre 1936 et 2004, construites à partir de données fiscales et fichiers administratifs.Le Portugal est un cas spécial de pays doté d'une structure bureaucratique bien organisée en ce qui concerne l'imposition sur le revenu, influencée par la stabilité du régime autoritaire au pouvoir entre 1926 et 1974. Les dossiers administratifs et les données étaient régulièrement publiés depuis 1936. Malheureusement, ces archives et données présentent un blanc entre 1983 et 1988, une période durant laquelle de nombreuses réformes fiscales ont été introduites, ainsi que la transition entre l'ancien et le nouvel impôt sur le revenu réalisée en 1989. Les résultats montrent une relative stabilité des parts des hauts revenus entre la fin de la ...