Summary We study the income concentration in the Swiss federation over the course of the 20th century using federal income tax statistics. The results suggest that top incomes in Switzerland evolved over time rather remaining constant across different income shares. Income concentration peaked during the 1940s, with a slight downward trend until the 1990s. Over the last 15 years, top incomes have recovered. In contrast, the evolution of income concentration is much more heterogeneous on the sub-federal level for the 26 cantons because of the federalist constitution, which has a decentralized taxing power. Consequently, top incomes in some cantons have a downward trend; others show a fall and rise of top incomes over the century, as exemplified by the Kuznets’ hypothesis; some develop rather constantly; and some cantons even produce a striking upward trend.
This paper provides empirical evidence on the long run effects of tax policy on income concentration in Switzerland. As Swiss cantons enjoy considerable autonomy with respect to income taxation, it is possible to study the impact of the cantonal income tax burden, as well as the influence of tax competition, on cantonal top income shares. Using panel regressions covering all Swiss cantons from 1917 to 2009 we find the expected negative effect of the tax burden on the cantonal top income share. Further, we find evidence that tax competition is a driving force behind the income shares of the top 1, 0.5 and 0.1 percent. Lower tax rates in neighbor cantons induce competitive pressure and ceteris paribus reduce top income shares in a canton. For the very top incomes tax competition seems to be an issue of the last 30 years.
Zusammenfassung: Erweiterungen von Verkehrsinfrastruktur-Netzen können einen massgeblichen Einfluss auf die Entwicklung von Regionen ausüben. Zu beobachtende regionale Effekte spiegeln dabei aber nicht zwangsläufig einen Netto-Einkommenszuwachs für das gesamte Gebiet wider; sie können auch auf einer blossen Umverteilung zwischen einzelnen Regionen beruhen. Im vorliegenden Artikel untersuchen wir die Auswirkungen zweier Erweiterungen des Schweizer Autobahnnetzes auf das regionale Pro-Kopf-Einkommen. Wir verwenden hierfür die Methode der synthetischen Kontrolle von Abadie, Diamond und Hainmueller (2010) und konzentrieren uns auf Effekte, die über eine einfache regionale Verlagerung von Personen und Unternehmen hinausgehen. Die verbesserte Erreichbarkeit zeigt dabei in beiden Fallstudien keinen positiven kurz-oder mittelfristigen Einfluss auf das regionale ProKopf-Einkommen. Die Resultate legen somit nahe, dass der regionale Nutzen von Verkehrsinfrastruktur-Erweiterungen kleiner ist als in früheren Studien angenommen.JEL-Klassifikation: H54, O18, R40
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