The Rich in Argentina during the Twentieth Century 1932-2004

FACUNDO ALVAREDO

Top Incomes over the XXth Century: A Global Perspective

Oxford University Press

Lugar: Oxford, UK; Año: 2010; p. 253 - 298

This chapter presents series of top income shares in Argentina between 1932 and 2004. The use of long-run statistical information from the Argentine personal income tax, never exploited before, allows us to cover a long time span and fill a gap in the analysis of the long run dynamics of income concentration. We find an increase in top income shares after the Great Depression, with maxima in 1943-1944, and a substantial decline during the Peronist years. However, the limits of the Peronist redistributive policy are marked by the fact that in 1956, if lower than in 1945, the top shares were still above the ones observed in the developed world; they were higher than in the United States, France and even Spain. Since then, top income shares seem to have described the U-shape pattern found in the developed English-speaking economies.