Importing inequality: immigration and the top 1 percent
Advani, A., König, F., Pessina, L. & Summers, A.
(2020).
Importing inequality: immigration and the top 1 percent.
(CEP Discussion Papers CEPDP1717).
London School of Economics and Political Science. Centre for Economic Performance.
(2020).
Importing inequality: immigration and the top 1 percent.
(CEP Discussion Papers CEPDP1717).
London School of Economics and Political Science. Centre for Economic Performance.
In this paper we study the contribution of migrants to the rise in UK top incomes. Using administrative data on the universe of UK taxpayers we show migrants are over-represented at the top of the income distribution, with mi-grants twice as prevalent in the top 0.1% as anywhere in the bottom 97%. These high incomes are predominantly from labour, rather than capital, and migrants are concentrated in only a handful of industries, predominantly finance. Almost all (85%) of the growth in the UK top 1% income share over the past 20 years can be attributed to migration.