Immigration and the top 1 percent
Advani, A., Koenig, F., Pessina, L. & Summers, A.
(2025).
Immigration and the top 1 percent.
Review of Economics and Statistics,
107(4), 1123 – 1135.
https://doi.org/10.1162/rest_a_01408
(2025).
Immigration and the top 1 percent.
Review of Economics and Statistics,
107(4), 1123 – 1135.
https://doi.org/10.1162/rest_a_01408
Using administrative data on the universe of U.K. taxpayers, we study the contribution of migrants to the rise in U.K. top incomes. We show that migrants are over-represented at the top of the income distribution, with migrants twice as prevalent in the top 0.01% as anywhere in the bottom 97% of taxpayers. These high incomes are predominantly from labor, rather than capital, and migrants are concentrated in only a handful of industries, predominantly finance. All of the observed growth in the U.K. top 1% income share over the past 20 years has accrued to migrants.