Working Paper Series

Congressional Budget Office

Washington, D.C.

Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation:

Evidence from Executive Compensation and Statistics of Income Data

Nada O. Eissa

Georgetown University and NBER

Washington, D.C.

noe@georgetown.edu

Seth H. Giertz

Tax Analysis Division

Congressional Budget Office

Washington, D.C.

Seth.Giertz@cbo.gov

December 2006

CBO Working Paper 2006‐14

Eissa was on leave from the Department of the Treasury when this paper was completed.  

Congressional Budget Office working papers in this series are preliminary and are

circulated to stimulate discussion and critical comment.  Those papers are not subject to the

Congressional Budget Office’s formal review and editing processes.  The analysis and

conclusions expressed in them are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as

those of the Congressional Budget Office, nor of the Department of the Treasury.  Papers in

the series are available at www.cbo.gov/publications/.
Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation:

Evidence from Executive Compensation and Statistics of Income

Nada O. Eissa and Seth H. Giertz*

Abstract

This paper examines income trends from 1992 to 2004 and the responsiveness of different income

measures to tax changes for corporate executives and for the very highest income U.S. taxpayers.  We

detail the growth in executive compensation and break down the components of that growth by sources,

such as the value of options and stock grants, as well as bonus income.  We then examine income trends

at various points in the income distribution for executives and for all taxpayers.  An empirical strategy

similar to that employed by Goolsbee (2000) is then used to examine the responsiveness to tax rates of

broad measures as well as individual sources of executive compensation.  Additionally, we investigate

the impact of marginal tax rates applying to corporate income, personal income, and capital gains on the

composition of executive compensation.

Consistent with other studies, we find that most of the growth and volatility in incomes has been

concentrated within the top one percent of taxpayers, for whom income grew sharply between 1992 and

2000, and then declined sharply from 2000 to 2002.  Below the top one percent, income patterns are much

more stable.  Income patterns for executives are similar to, but more volatile than, those for the very

highest income taxpayers.  Salary income of executives has been relatively stable, while the value of their

stock options, stock grants, and bonuses has grown tremendously.

We use data from two sources:  a panel of executives and IRS tax returns from the Statistics of Income.  

Our elasticity estimates based on the panel of executives may be more reliable than those based on the tax

panel because the regressions include firm‐specific information that helps to explain changes in income.  

For executives, our permanent earned income elasticity estimate for the early 1990s is 0.19 (with

substantial transitory shifting of income into the year prior to the 1993 tax increase).  There is also

evidence of substantial transitory income shifting around the time of the 2001 Economic Growth Tax

Relief and Reconciliation Act (EGTRRA), but the overall estimated elasticity is negative.  The results are

not definitive, however.  Our results are sensitive to many factors, such as the time‐period examined, the

data set used, and the econometric specification.  That inconsistency reflects the complexities inherent in

estimating high‐income behavioral responses to taxation.  The fact that the elasticity estimates differ

greatly across time‐periods and across the two datasets suggests that non‐tax factors are extremely

important.  That observation is consistent with several other papers (Slemrod 1996, Saez 2004, Kopczuk

2005, Giertz 2006) that all show a great deal of sensitivity surrounding taxable income elasticity estimates.

   

* The authors wish to thank David Weiner, Ed Harris, Bob Williams, Larry Ozanne, John

Sabelhaus, and Bob Dennis for comments and for assistance with the data construction.  Nicola

Lostumbo provided excellent research assistance.
Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation

1

1. Introduction

This paper examines recent income trends and behavioral responses to tax changes for some of the

very highest income U.S. taxpayers.  As other researchers have found, taxpayers at the top of the

income distribution account for a large and growing share of overall income and an even larger

share of federal tax revenues.  The share of total income accruing to the top one percent of the

distribution rose by 35 percent (from 9.1 to 12.3 percent) from 1980 to 1992, and by another 16

percent from 1992 to 2003 (despite a 20 percent drop from 2000 to 2003).  In terms of tax revenues,

the top one percent pays over one‐third of all federal income taxes and well over one‐fifth of all

federal taxes.1

Feldstein’s (1995) seminal paper led to a shift in research on the efficiency costs of taxation from

traditional measures of labor supply (hours worked and participation) to broader measures of

labor market behavior, measured by the elasticity of taxable income.  That much broader measure

of the consequences of taxation encompasses responses resulting from changes not just in hours

worked, but also responses along other margins, including changes in work effort, human capital

accumulation, and the shifting of income both intertemporally and, within a time‐period, between

different bases.  The marginal efficiency cost of taxation and excess burden can be calculated

directly from the elasticity of taxable income (Feldstein 1999).2

High‐income tax filers may be more responsive to taxes than other income groups because they

have more margins through which they can respond than do more modestly paid workers (who

often rely primarily on wage and salary income).  Taxable income responses can take various

forms, including real responses (labor supply and entrepreneurial effort), income shifting, and tax

avoidance or evasion.  Income shifting can occur across sources of income subject to different tax

treatment; some categories of income are subject to different tax rates, while others may be outside

the tax base entirely.  Additionally, the use of tax deductions and exemptions may be responsive to

taxes.  Income shifting can also take place across time periods by altering the timing of deductions

 

1 Congressional Budget Office, “Historical Effective Federal Tax Rates: 1979 to 2003,” December 2005.  Those

estimates are somewhat different from those reported by Piketty and Saez (2003) and in section 2 of this paper

due to slight differences both in how the top one percent is defined and the definition of income.

2 The elasticity of taxable income can be expressed as ⎟

⎠

⎞ ⎜

⎝

⎛ ⎟

⎠

⎞ ⎜

⎝

⎛ − ⋅

− TaxableIncome

MTR

d MTR

dTaxableIncome 1

(1 )

.
Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation

2

or income received through, for example, bonuses or the exercise of options.  While high‐income

taxpayers generally have more fungible sources of income, allowing them to more easily shift

income across categories and time‐periods, their real responses (hours worked or work effort) may

be more sensitive to taxes because their wealth cushions the impact on their standard of living.

This paper examines behavioral responses of both executives and other high‐income taxpayers to

changes in tax rates.  In examining the responses of executives, we use data from Standard &

Poor’s Executive Compensation Database (ExecuComp).  Interest in increasing the transparency of

executive pay has grown recently in the wake of corporate accounting scandals and the large

growth in executive compensation.  The Securities and Exchange Commission has passed more

stringent rules, set to take effect in 2007, for the reporting of executive compensation.  Apart from

the issue of transparency, data on the level and composition of executive pay allow for a direct

evaluation of several potential tax responses, along margins that are not observable with IRS tax

data.

Goolsbee (2000) uses ExecuComp data to examine the response of high‐income executives to the

tax increases of the early 1990s.  He generally finds large responses of earned income to changes in

the current after‐tax share3 — estimating a taxable‐income elasticity often well above one — but

small permanent responses.  He concludes that the behavioral response of executives to the 1993

tax increase was largely transitory — a temporary shifting of income into the relatively low‐tax

period.  The permanent (or longer‐term) elasticity was as low as zero — but ranged as high as 0.40.  

Hall and Liebman (2000; henceforth, HL) used similar data on CEOs to examine responses to the

1990s tax increases as well as the tax cuts of the 1980s.  They also find a small overall response for

the tax hikes of the 1990s, but argue that the large transitory response observed by Goolsbee may

reflect past option grants and stock appreciation rather than a tax response.  HL’s results are not

definitive, however.  Estimates on their key covariates are not consistent with theory — and in

some instances, estimates show strong statistical significance although they have the “wrong sign.”

Those findings stand in contrast to other empirical evidence on the taxable income elasticity of

high‐income taxpayers (Giertz, 2004).  In particular, Gruber and Saez (2002), Saez (2004), and

Giertz (2005) all find much larger responses for very high income tax filers than for the rest of the

 

3 The after‐tax share equals one minus the marginal tax rate.
Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation

3

distribution.  Saez (2004), for example, finds almost no response for the bottom 99 percent of the

income distribution, but substantial response at the very top.  Notably, those results are based on

tax return data from the IRS’s Statistics of Income (SOI).

We use ExecuComp data and SOI data on tax returns for years 1992 to 2004 in order to better

understand the growth and composition of executive pay as well as the role of tax changes.  We

first detail the growth in the value of options and stock grants as well as bonus income, then

examine income trends at various points in the income distribution (for executives as well as all

high‐income taxpayers).     

To measure transitory and permanent (or long‐term) behavioral responses to the tax changes of the

1990s and 2000s, we use both ExecuComp and SOI data to estimate regressions using specifications

similar to those used by Goolsbee (2000).  We examine the responsiveness of both broad measures

(total compensation) and individual sources of executive compensation.  Finally, we extend the

analysis to evaluate the impact of marginal tax rates applying to corporate income, personal

income, and capital gains on the composition of executive compensation (HL 2000).   The later

regressions are estimated on shares of compensation (such as non‐qualified stock options and

restricted stock grants).

For executives, we find a permanent earned income elasticity for the early 1990s of 0.19 (including

an estimated anticipation effect of ‐0.63), about half the size of Goolsbee’s comparable estimate.  

For the 2001 tax act, the estimate is negative; the anticipation effect is slightly larger (‐0.69), but the

current effect is about zero.  Restricting the sample to executives with very high incomes (such as

those with incomes of $1 million or higher) yields larger estimated responses for the 1990s, but for

2000 to 2004 and for 1992 to 2004 the overall estimated elasticities remain negative (i.e., the “wrong

sign”).  Those findings are similar to HL (2000), which  showed the “wrong sign” for the 1990s and

for periods in the 1980s on at least one of the two components used to calculate the net (i.e.,

permanent) elasticity.

For the SOI, estimates from a simple model yield estimated responses that are much larger than

those for the ExecuComp.  For the more sophisticated model, the SOI estimates are smaller, but

very sensitive to the different time periods and sometimes the signs on the coefficients are not
Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation

4

consistent with theory.  In light of that, the SOI results should be viewed as inconclusive, while

also suggesting that firm‐specific information (available in the ExecuComp, but not the SOI) may

be important in identifying responses.  The ExecuComp‐based results, however, are not definitive

because even with firm‐specific information the estimates are sensitive to an array of factors and it

is likely that the controls are insufficient for a wide range of non‐tax factors, including the upward,

but volatile, income trend observed at the top of the income distribution over the study period.

2. The Composition of Executive Compensation and the Concentration of Top Incomes

2.1 The Executive Compensation Database.

The ExecuComp database used in this paper tracks CEOs plus the four other highest‐paid

executives (based on salary and bonus income) at corporations in the Standard and Poor’s S&P 500,

S&P Mid Cap 400, and S&P Small Cap 600.   The data span 1992 to 2004, a period during which

taxes were raised and then cut, and during which the stock market boomed and then precipitously

declined.  The data are compiled by Standard and Poor’s from proxy statements and 10‐K forms

and are part of its Compustat database.  The data represent an important subset of the very highest

income U.S. taxpayers and have been used to examine the behavioral response of high‐income

taxpayers to the 1993 tax increase, passed as part of OBRA 93 (Goolsbee 2000, and HL 2000).

The advantages and limitations of the ExecuComp data have been discussed elsewhere (Goolsbee

2000), but are useful to review.  On the plus side, the data include a large sample of very highly

compensated individuals and provide detailed information on their compensation packages

(salary, bonus, Long‐Term Incentive Plan [LTIP] payouts, options exercised, and other income)

both at a point in time and over time.  In addition, at the end of each fiscal year, the ExecuComp

includes each executive’s total holding of stock in the corporation as well as stock options.  Among

the confounding factors in measuring behavioral responses to taxation has been the general

inability to control for the firm’s financial and accounting performance.  The ExecuComp’s firm‐

specific information overcomes that obstacle.

The main drawbacks of the ExecuComp are its lack of both demographic information and

information on deductions and exemptions as well as income received from outside the firm,

including income of spouses or other family members.  In contrast to tax return data, the definition
Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation

5

of the various income sources generally does not change over time, thus, it is not necessary to

construct a constant‐law measure of income.  But the drawback is that the reported incomes make

up just one component of overall taxable income.  In fact, the main income measure used in this

paper (and in much of the literature examining responses of executives to changes in tax rates) is

actually a measure of earned income, as opposed to the more comprehensive taxable income

measure in the tax return data, and even then it is only a partial measure because it misses other

members of the tax unit.

In addition to those drawbacks, some have recently questioned the transparency of information

from proxy statements filed with the SEC.  Reports of large compensation packages paid to some

high‐profile executives (or former executives) from sources other than the SEC have fueled concern

that reporting requirements have too many loopholes.4  In general, the value of retirement

packages (and other post‐employment benefits), some perquisites, and tax‐gross‐ups (where the

firm makes additional payments to executives to cover some or all of their tax liabilities) often go

unreported to the SEC.  In response to the widespread belief that these forms of compensation are

excessively large and are used primarily to circumvent SEC reporting rules (and possibly to hide

information from shareholders), the SEC has tightened the rules for reporting executive

compensation.  The new rules, set to take effect in 2007, require corporations to report nearly all

forms of executive compensation.

In calculating earned income (before deductions) for executives in the ExecuComp database, we

assume that all executives (1) are married and file joint income tax returns, and (2) report no other

earned income (e.g., spousal income, income from outside the firm, etc.).   Excluded income would

bias the selection of the sample and the empirical results if it varies across executives by their

earned income.  For comparison, we employ, as closely as possible, the same sample selection

criteria for the SOI data (discussed below).

 

4 In one highly‐publicized case, former General Electric CEO Jack Welch was reported to have received an

annual pension in excess of $9 million dollars.  Additionally, his retirement package included a vast array of

lavish in‐kind benefits, with an estimated annual dollar‐value well into the millions.  GE was not required to

provide that information to the SEC and it only came to light in Welch’s divorce proceedings.
Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation

6

For the ExecuComp sample, earned income is defined as the sum of salary, bonus, LTIP payments,

and exercised stock options.  The non‐salary components of income are taxed in different ways.5  

LTIP payments may or may not be taxable, depending on their form.  Firms typically reward

executives with cash (taxable), but they may also reward executives using shares (non‐taxable).   

The tax treatment of options depends on whether they are nonqualified stock options (NQSO) or

incentive stock options (ISO).   Both types of options are not taxed (at the individual level) when

granted, but receive markedly different tax treatment (from each other) when exercised.   At the

time of exercise, NQSOs are counted as ordinary income equal to the difference between the stock

price on that date and the option strike price.  ISOs, on the other hand, are not counted as ordinary

income even when exercised; instead, at the time of sale, the difference between the sale price and

the option strike price counts as capital gains income.  Another important difference is that (at the

firm level) NQSOs are deductible against corporate profits, whereas ISOs are not.  For the

ExecuComp sample, the calculation of earned income assumes that exercised stock options are

nonqualified and are thus counted as ordinary income.  In fact, 95 percent of options are estimated

to be NQSOs (HL 2000).

  

To focus on taxpayers in the top tax bracket (who faced the most significant changes in tax rates)

and to avoid (cross‐sectional) endogeneity between income and marginal tax rates, for both of our

datasets, we follow Goolsbee by selecting those with permanent (i.e., mean) annual incomes in

excess of $376,000 (which is roughly Goolsbee’s cutoff when measured in 2004 dollars).  Permanent

income is calculated by averaging income over an individual’s entire tenure in the data.6  The

degree to which permanent income is endogenous to tax rates depends on the nature of the

behavioral response.  To the extent that behavioral responses are more transitory (i.e., a shifting of

income intertemporally as opposed to a persistent change in behavior), permanent income will be

less sensitive to taxes than an annual measure.  In addition, and also following Goolsbee, we

include only executives working for firms with fiscal years ending in December.  The resulting

sample is composed of 10,179 executives and 58,394 observations.   From 1992 to 2004, those

executives earned on average $1,928,376 (2004$) in annual income (salary plus bonus, long‐term

 

5 The issue with bonus income is a technical one regarding the timing of its reporting versus its payout (when

it is taxable).  Because reporting typically differs by at most one calendar year, any discrepancies may affect

estimates of the degree of shifting in income but not the long‐term elasticity.   6 Permanent income is used instead of contemporaneous income so that mean reversion is not a major factor

in determining the sample.  With contemporaneous income, a transitory component of income could lead to a

spurious correlation between income and tax changes, biasing estimated responses.
Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation

7

incentive plan payouts, and exercised options), with half earning more than $789,961 (2004$),  see

Table 2.1.   On average, total compensation (earned income plus restricted stock grants, the Black‐

Scholes value7 of unexercised options granted, and other income) for those executives was

$2,619,757 (2004$), while the median was $958,916 (2004$).

2.2  The Statistics of Income.

Executives are a select subset of high‐income taxpayers and the data do not include all relevant

information for tax purposes.  For that reason, we also use IRS data covering all taxpayers; the

other data are from individual tax returns from the Statistics of Income (SOI) for years 1992 to 2003.  

The SOI is a stratified random sample of tax filers, compiled by the Internal Revenue Service, and

includes most information reported on filers’ tax returns, plus additional demographic

information.  In order to have a sample with a similar income range as our ExecuComp sample, we

restrict our SOI sample to taxpayers with mean annual earned income (i.e., reported wage and

salary income), greater than $376,000 (2004$) and employ, as closely as possible, the same sample

selection criteria used with the ExecuComp.  We base our primary income measure on earned

income (again primarily wages and salaries) and calculate a full taxable income measure

(excluding capital gains).  Gross income equals total income before exemptions and deductions

(less capital gains and Social Security benefits).8  The resulting sample, after employing all of the

sample restrictions, is composed of 97,336 filers and 314,020 observations.

Over the 12 years of our data, the average annual real wage and salary income (the income

measure that is closest to the earned income measure from the ExecuComp) is $2,771,331 (2004$)

and the median is $946,203 (2004$), see Table 2.1.  For all tax filers with mean earned income above

$376,000, earned income makes up about 90 percent of total taxable income (excluding capital

gains and after deductions) and about 80 percent of gross income (excluding capital gains).9

 

7 The Black‐Scholes formula is applied to estimate the market value of derivatives (such as stock options).  The

values take into account several factors, including the value of the underlying assets, the time remaining on

the derivative, and the price volatility of the underlying security.

8 Specifically, gross income = wages + salaries & tips + interest income + dividends + alimony received +

business income (or loss) + IRA distributions + pensions & annuities + Schedule E income + farm iIncome +

unemployment income + other income. 9 Those percentages are based on all filers (with average incomes exceeding $376,000) from 1992 to 2003 and

not just those in our sample.  Also, unless otherwise stated, all income measures discussed in this paper

exclude capital gains.
Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation

8

Two main advantages of the SOI are that it contains actual data reported to the IRS and it heavily

oversamples high‐income filers.  Actual information from tax returns gives a much broader and

more accurate measure of taxable income than do measures constructed from the ExecuComp

because the former includes wages and salaries earned outside of the corporation, other forms of

taxable income besides earned income, income from spouses, and deductions and credits taken by

the filer.  The fact that the SOI oversamples high‐income returns (those at the very top of the

income distribution are sampled at a 100 percent rate) results in a large number of high‐income

filers who are often observed in multiple years.  Various years of the SOI have been used to

examine behavioral responses to tax changes (Carroll 1998, Auten and Carroll 1999, Giertz 2006).10

The main drawbacks of the SOI are that important forms of compensation are either not reported

or reported only when realized.  Capital gains, for example, are not taxed (or reported) upon

accrual, but only when realized, often leading researchers to exclude capital gains when measuring

behavioral responses to tax changes.  Additionally, with tax data it is often not possible to

distinguish between income from options and income from regular earnings.  Perquisites,

including health benefits, are often tax‐preferred and not reported on individual returns.  Tax‐

deferred benefits, such as 401(k) contributions, are another important form of compensation that is

not reported on tax forms (until funds are withdrawn).  Furthermore, the rules for what must be

reported (and the definition of taxable income itself) change periodically, making it difficult to

construct a taxable income measure that is consistent over time.   

2.3  Basic Findings on the Level and Composition of Executive Compensation.

Executive compensation has grown tremendously in recent decades, and evidence on the growth

of CEO compensation from 1980 to 1994 shows an especially large role of stock options (HL 1998).  

 

10 A subset of the SOI, the Continuous Work History Survey (CWHS), which is composed of a random sample

of tax returns, has been used in other studies (such as Gruber and Saez, 2002, and Kopczuk, 2005).  While the

CWHS has many desirable properties, it does not have a large number of filers from the very top of the

income distribution.  For example, from 1992 to 2003, the full SOI includes 166,040 returns with salaried

income exceeding $1,000,000 (2004$) versus just 1,201 such returns from the CWHS portion of the sample.  At

salaried incomes of $5,000,000 or greater, the full SOI includes 37,062 returns, while just 261 of those returns

are in the CWHS.  The behavior of very high income filers is especially important because they are responsible

for a relatively large share of total income (and an even larger share of federal tax revenues) and because both

theoretical and empirical evidence suggests that their behavior in response to changes in tax rates may be very

different from the rest of the income distribution.
Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation

9

This paper shows that the trend (at least since the early 1990s) holds as well for top executives

more generally.  Average (real) total compensation was 114 percent greater in 2004 than in 1992,

rising from an average of $1.2 million in 1992 to $2.7 million in 2004.11  While salaries were

relatively flat, growing a total of only 14 percent, bonuses, stock grants, and the value of options

exploded over that time period.  The mean bonus grew by 153 percent ($342,000), stock grants by

396 percent ($344,000), and the value of options granted by 145 percent ($541,000) — see Figure 2.1

and Table 2.3.  As a share of total compensation, salaries fell by nearly half, from 32 percent in 1992

to 17 percent in 2004, while the value of options granted, stock grants, and bonuses rose from 55

percent to 72 percent of total compensation.  (In fact, the value of option grants alone represented

nearly 60 percent of total compensation in 2001, before falling sharply.)  On top of that, equity

holdings by executives have increased greatly, partly as a result of stock grants and exercised stock

options.  Thus, Hall and Liebman (1998) find that for many executives, changes in stock prices can

have an enormous impact on their wealth, far greater than the value of salaries and bonuses.

The sources of compensation that grew fastest also exhibited the greatest volatility.  The average

value of stock options, now the largest source of compensation, rose by a total 396 percent ($1.4

million) from 1992 to 2000.  But, the drop in the stock market in 2000 (and the subsequent

recession) resulted in a decline in the average value of options of 49 percent ($866,000) by 2004.  

Bonuses and stock grants also declined from 2000 to 2001, but started to rebound in 2002.  In fact,

by 2004 bonuses and stock grants were at all‐time highs, average bonuses were 30 percent

($130,000) larger than their previous high and the value of stock grants was 41 percent ($125,000)

larger than their previous high.  The average value of options granted grew sharply from 2003 to

2004, but their value was still nearly 50 percent ($866,000) lower than at their peak in 2000.

Mean values show no obvious pattern of behavioral responses surrounding the 1993 tax increase

and 2001 tax decrease, which may well be masked by the rapid growth and volatility of executive

pay.  That is especially true for the 2001 Economic Growth Tax Relief and Reconciliation Act

(EGTRRA), which includes pieces that phase in and phase out (or expire) over a full decade

(ending in 2011), and coincided with a drop in the stock market and a mild recession.  Note,

however, that the value of exercised options fell sharply in 1993 even as total compensation

 

11 Numbers are based on the sample of firms with fiscal years ending in December.
Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation

10

continued to rise through the 1993 Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (OBRA 93).12  The average

value of exercised options fell from $446,000 in 1992 to $263,000 in 1993 and to $252,000 in 1994.  It

was not until 1995 that the value of exercised options exceeded its 1992 level.  The drop in the

value of exercised options, possibly due to non‐tax factors, is consistent with intertemporal income

shifting.  Nonqualified stock options are treated as ordinary income and faced a 28 percent higher

top tax rate in 1993 than in 1992 (39.6 percent versus 31 percent).13  Additionally, executives have a

great deal of discretion in exercising their options.

2.4  Comparing the SOI and ExecuComp Data.

Corporate executives are a small but important subset of high‐income taxpayers.  The full

ExecuComp sample represents well less than one‐hundredth of one‐percent of all taxpayers

between 1992 and 2004, and over seven‐tenths of a percent of the top one‐percent of all income tax

filers.  They represent a much larger share of the highest‐income taxpayers when measured by

income, however.  Executives in the sample account for as much as $22.3 billion in annual earned

income and $28.3 billion in total compensation (for 2000).  For 2000, that amounts to 3.6 percent of

all reported earned income for the top one percent of tax filers.

The Income Distributions of Executives and High‐Income Taxpayers.  Two observations emerge

from comparing kernel density estimates for executives and for taxpayers in the top one‐percent of

the overall earned income distribution, see Figure 2.3.  First, the modes for the two distributions

are similar, but earned income for the tax filers is more tightly compressed: at the mode, the

density for tax filers is over 5.5 times the density for executives.  Second, the two distributions

intersect at roughly $420,000, but a much larger share of the executive sample (as compared to the

top one percent of tax filers) has income greater than $420,000.  Thus, earned income for executives

shows much greater variation than does earned income for the top one percent of taxpayers.  While

many executives are not in the top one percent of the overall earned income distribution, most are.

 

12 The effect of the tax acts (mentioned here) is discussed in more detail in the following section.

13 For 1994, that top rate was effectively 42.5 percent because of the elimination of the income cap for the

portion of the payroll tax used to finance Medicare.
Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation

11

Income for many executives is not only in the top percentile, but well above the 99th percentile.  To

illustrate that fact, we present gross income for fractiles and percentiles within the top decile of all

taxpayers in 1998 as reported by Piketty and Saez (henceforth PS, 2003) as well as comparable

numbers from the ExecuComp, see Table 2.2.  Executives’ gross income includes earned income

plus other annual income and restricted stock grants, but does not include the value of unexercised

options.14  In 1998, the taxpayer at the 95th percentile had gross income that would have placed her

below the 2nd percentile of executives in the ExecuComp data.  The taxpayer at the 99th percentile of

the SOI distribution earned $266,778 (2004$) in 1998, placing her at about the 13th percentile of

executives.  Finally, only 0.01 of one percent of tax returns reported gross incomes greater than $4.2

million (2004$), compared to almost 8.5 percent of ExecuComp executives.   The bottom panel of

the table presents a slightly different picture of the data. Taxpayers at the 90th to 99th percentiles

($134,175) earned almost one‐quarter less than the bottom ten percent of ExecuComp executives.  

On average, the top five percent of executives earned gross income of $17.4 million, over 50 percent

more than the top 0.01 percent of the SOI.

IncomeTrends. Income trends (at various percentiles) in the two datasets suggest the degree to

which executives are representative of very high‐income taxpayers more generally.  Comparability

of the income trends is important because it speaks to our ability to extrapolate from the behavioral

responses of executives to high‐income taxpayers more broadly.  (Section 4 includes a broader

comparison of executives and other high‐income tax filers.)

Trends in earned income at various percentiles show that growth in top incomes is concentrated

within the top one percent of taxfilers, see Figure 2.2, Table 2.4 and Table 2.5.15  Income growth and

volatility are most striking at the top one‐tenth of the 99th percentile (i.e., the 99.9th percentile).16  

The 99th and the 99.5th percentiles have the highest average growth (1.6 percent a year) over the full

13‐year period, but in years 1994 to 2000, growth was much stronger for the top tenth of the 99th

percentile (averaging 4 percent or $36,967 a year) than at any other point in the distribution.  For

that latter group (the top one‐tenth of one percent), earned income peaked in 2000 and then

declined sharply through 2002 before leveling in 2003, falling by an average of over 5 percent or

 

14 Numbers are based on the ExecuComp sample with fiscal years ending in December.

15 Patterns for taxable income (less capital gains and after deductions) and for gross income (less capital gains)

are very similar to the patterns for earned income. 16 The Appendix reinforces those findings by looking at top income shares.
Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation

12

$41,053 a year over that period.  That pattern appears to be closely linked to the performance of the

stock market; in fact, the S&P 500 follows a similar, albeit more exaggerated, path.17  Overall, those

findings are in sharp contrast to the rest of the income distribution;  for example, median real

earned income was remarkably stable, increasing on average 0.63 percent ($132) a year.18  

The ExecuComp data show broadly similar, though much more pronounced, patterns at the very

top of the distribution, see Figure 2.4, Table 2.4 and Table 2.5.  In addition, earned income at each

of the top four deciles of the income distribution declined from 1992 to 1994, then increased

sharply through 2000, only to decline again sharply from 2000 to 2002.  That pattern is notably not

consistent with points in the top decile of the overall distribution.19

The rates of change in the earnings of executives at the 90th percentile are roughly twice those of

corresponding changes for the top one‐tenth of the 99th percentile of all taxpayers.  At the 95th

percentile of the ExecuComp data the pattern is even more exaggerated, with earned income

falling at an average of 7.4 percent ($274,975) per year from 1992 to 1994, increasing by an average

of 29.3 percent ($849,156) per year from 1994 to 2000, and then falling again by 16.4 percent

($1,450,303) a year from 2000 to 2002.  The S&P 500 index followed a very similar trend over this

same period, see Figure 2.4.

The reasons behind the volatility in executive earnings in the top decile of their distribution

(relative to all taxpayers) are not obvious, though several factors are likely important.  First,

executive incomes may be more volatile by their very nature than the incomes of non‐executives;

for example, executive income may be more cyclical, as suggested by the comparison between the

top income groups from the ExecuComp and the S&P 500 index.  Second, the ExecuComp data

represent a narrow picture of high‐income taxpayers, raising the possibility that some of the

volatility is just noise.  Finally, earned income measures in the two samples differ:  the SOI

 

17 The S&P 500 has been converted to real dollars by the CPI and then superimposed over the other income

trends for comparison.  The actual measure of the S&P 500 is not listed on either axis.

18 By comparison, and illustrative of the sharp income growth at the top of the distribution, mean income,

plotted against the right‐hand axis, is on average 63 percent, or $13,682, greater than median income and the

mean grows at about a 50 percent greater rate than the median (0.91 percent versus 0.63 percent) from 1992 to

2003.

19 A difference between the ExecuComp and the overall distribution of tax returns is that from 2002 to 2003,

income at points in the overall distribution was generally flat, while for the ExecuComp, earned income

increased, often sharply, between 2002 and 2004.
Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation

13

measure includes income earned outside the firm as well as spousal income, and so may be

inherently more stable.  

3.  Tax Changes and Estimation Strategy

3.1  Federal Income Tax Changes, 1992 to 2004

To identify the impact of tax rate changes on the level and composition of high‐income taxpayers

compensation, this paper uses the variation in both federal and state income tax rates from 1992 to

2004.  During that period, a series of federal tax acts − OBRA 93, the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997

(TRA 97),  EGTRRA, and the 2003 Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act (JGTRRA) − first

raised and then lowered the marginal tax rate at the top of the income distribution, see Table 3.1

and Figure 3.1.  OBRA 93 raised the marginal income tax rate for married (joint) tax filers in the top

bracket (with taxable income of more than $250,000) from 31 percent to 39.6 percent, and in the

next bracket (with incomes between $140,000 and $250,000) from 31 percent to 36 percent.  OBRA

93 also eliminated the cap on income that is subject to the Medicare component of the payroll tax

($135,000 in 1993), effectively raising the marginal tax rate on those taxpayers by an additional 2.9

percentage points starting in 1994.20   Finally, included in OBRA 93 was Section 162(m) of the

Internal Revenue Code (“million‐dollar rule”), which put a $1 million limit on the deductibility

(against corporate profits) of non‐performance‐based compensation of the CEO and other four

most highly compensated executives.  In addition to introducing new vehicles for deferring

taxation on certain types of savings, TRA 97 lowered long‐term capital gains tax rates and offered

large exclusions for capital gains resulting from home sales.

The 2001 and 2003 tax cuts included provisions that phase in and expire at different times.21  The

top rate declines from 39.6 percent in 2000 to an eventual level of 35 percent.  The 36, 31, and 28

percent brackets ultimately fall by 3 percentage points each.  Those reductions were scheduled to

be gradual under the 2001 act: all four rates were reduced by 0.5 percentage points on July 1, 2001,

and January 1, 2002, and were scheduled to be reduced by an additional percentage point at the

 

20 Effective marginal tax rates can be higher because of phaseouts of up to 100 percent of personal exemptions

(PEP) and up to 80 percent of itemized deductions (Pease).  However, most of the taxpayers in our samples

are beyond the phaseout range and thus not affected on the margin.

21 The 2001 and 2003 tax acts are discussed in detail by Gale and Orszag (2004).
Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation

14

beginning of 2004.  At the beginning of 2006, the top rate was scheduled to fall by 2.6 percentage

points, while the next three rates were scheduled to fall by 1 percentage point.  The 2003 tax cut

accelerated the reductions scheduled for 2004 and 2006 to the beginning of 2003.  The reduced rates

are in effect through 2010.

In 2003, JGTRRA reduced tax rates on dividends and capital gains.  Tax rates on realized long‐term

capital gains received by individual shareholders were reduced from 10 percent (in brackets where

the ordinary income tax rate was 15 percent or below) and 20 percent (in brackets where the

ordinary income tax was higher  than 15 percent) to 5 percent and 15 percent, respectively, through

2007 and to zero and 15 percent in 2008.  Tax rates on qualified dividends received by individual

shareholders were reduced from the rates that apply to ordinary income to the rates that apply to

capital gains.    

3.2  Identification and Estimation Strategy

Our empirical evaluation measures the responsiveness of various income sources to changes in tax

rates.  The specification applied to the ExecuComp data takes the form:  

   

ln(incomeit) = κi + βln(1‐τit) + γ∙ di ∙ ln(1‐ τcorp,t) + Xit Γ + εit

where    ln (incomeit) = Earned income (salary and bonus, LTIP, exercised options)  

    before deductions

= Total compensation (earned income + other income + restricted

stock grants + Black‐Scholes value of stock options)

κi = Fixed effect

(1‐τit)   = After‐tax share

di ∙ ln(1‐ τcorp,t) = “million‐dollar rule” dummy interacted with log of after‐

corporate‐tax share

Xit   = Market value of Firm, earnings‐assets ratio, year (time trend)

εit = (υi + ηit) which includes an individual (executive) fixed effect and

a random component

We estimate a similar model using the SOI for different (logged) measures of income including

earned income, full taxable income (after deductions), and gross income as dependent variables.  
Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation

15

The SOI does not include firm‐specific information, so we use the market price‐to‐earnings ratio for

the S&P 500, as well as the log of the S&P 500 index (expressed in constant dollars).

The SOI regressions are weighted to adjust for the SOI’s non‐random sampling properties.  

Selection into the SOI is conditional on several factors (including income) and sampling

probabilities reach 100 percent for very high‐income filers.  The data are constructed such that a

filer once sampled continues to be in the sample in all subsequent years, so long as her income

increases (and her other characteristics, such as filing status, are unchanged).  We weight each

observation by the inverse of its sampling probability.  The weighting adjusts for spurious

correlation between changes in income (our dependent variable) and explanatory variables.22  

Without weighting, estimated tax responses to tax reductions will be biased upward, and for tax

increases, downward.

We estimate the responses of both earned income (before deductions) and broader compensation

measures (total compensation for the ExecuComp and gross income for the SOI).  Prior analysis

suggests that broader income measures are less responsive to tax changes than is taxable income

(Gruber and Saez 2002 and Giertz 2005, 2006).  Shifting between different forms of compensation

intratemporally may explain the lower overall elasticity.  Of course, shifting income to sources

outside the measured base could result in a large elasticity.    

An important feature of the behavioral response of high‐income taxpayers is the ability to shift

income intertemporally in anticipation of a tax change.  To account for reactions to anticipated tax

changes, we extend the basic specification to:  

ln(incomeit)= κi +δ ln(1‐τit+1) + βln(1‐τit) + γ∙ di ∙ ln(1‐ τcorp,t) + Xit Γ + εit

where δ represents the response to anticipated tax changes.  The estimated coefficient on the

prospective net‐of‐tax rate (or after‐tax share) measures the response of current income to an

anticipated tax change.  If anticipated effects are in fact important, then expected future tax cuts

(hikes) should reduce (increase) current income, so that δ<0.   As a result, the net (longer‐term)

response of income (β+δ) may be smaller in magnitude than the short‐run response.

 

22 That strategy is discussed and employed by Auten and Carroll (1999) as well as by Giertz (2006).
Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation

16

The other key explanatory variable is the after‐tax share, calculated as one minus the sum of the

federal, FICA, and state income tax rates.  Economic theory suggests that current tax cuts (hikes)

would increase (reduce) current income, so that β>0.  Before further discussing our identification

strategy, let us elaborate on the different sources of (identifying) variation in tax rates.  All

individuals face the same federal income tax schedule at any point in time.  For taxable income with

the SOI, marginal and average tax rates vary depending on filing (i.e., family) status, the number of

exemptions (family size) and deductions, and unearned (interest, dividends, capital gains) and

earned income (wages and hours worked).  For earned income, however, tax rates do not vary

based on family characteristics (but, do vary by state of residence) because those characteristics are

not observed in the ExecuComp and, for the purpose of consistency in this analysis, the analogous

tax rates for SOI earned income are assumed not to vary by family characteristics.  The primary

source of variation in tax rates occurs over time, as tax schedules and therefore tax rates change.

In much of the literature, marginal tax rates are imputed using a sophisticated tax calculator (such

as the National Bureau of Economic Research’s TAXSIM or the Congressional Budget Office’s tax

model).   Two features of the ExecuComp data led us to a different approach.   First, executives in

our sample earn an average $1.9 million (2004$) in total compensation (including stock grants,

options granted, and other income), with half earning more than about $790,000.  Second, the data

include limited demographic characteristics and no outside (of the firm) income information.  As a

result, we assign all executives in our sample the highest federal (and state) marginal income tax

rates for each year that they are observed.   

As alluded to earlier, identification is based primarily on time‐series variation in federal, FICA, and

top state income tax rates, as well as cross‐sectional (i.e., locational) variation in state tax rates.23  

The drawback is that variation in federal marginal tax rates (across tax brackets) is not used to

identify behavioral responses.  Such variation, however, would likely have been noise, because

most executives in our sample, if not in the top tax bracket based on earned income from the firm,

 

23 State tax rates do vary across individuals, but that variation is likely correlated with unobserved non‐tax

factors and state fixed effects effectively remove some of that variation.
Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation

17

would be in the top bracket when other unobserved income sources are taken into account.24   That

strategy may be legitimately questioned for the SOI data, but our sample restriction (based on

income) ensures that almost all observations are in the top bracket.

The regressions also include a separate tax variable to account for the $1‐million limit on the

deductibility (against corporate profits) of non‐performance‐related compensation (the ʺmillion‐

dollar ruleʺ).   This variable is set to zero for executives whose salaries did not hit the cap prior to

1994, and at the net‐of‐corporate tax rate for executives whose salaries exceeded the cap.

Estimating the behavioral response to taxes (especially over an extended period) poses several

difficulties.  At the most general level, it is difficult to distinguish behavioral responses from

changes due to contemporaneous factors that are correlated with changes in reported income.  That

includes general economic conditions that affect firm performance and underlying trends that

show a skewing of the income distribution toward the top, see PS (2003) and section 3.   That

income trend poses problems for estimates based on differencing strategies that use an unaffected

group to help identify the underlying (non‐tax‐related) income trend for another group.  The

direction of any resulting bias is not always obvious, and can vary depending on the direction of

the tax change.  Between 1992 and 2004, taxes were increased and subsequently reduced, yet the

underlying trend in the income distribution was largely unchanged.  In addition, the economy was

in the midst of the longest post‐war boom in United States history (during most of which the

federal income tax schedule remained unchanged).  In our analysis, we present results for the

entire period as well as for the OBRA 93 and EGTRRA tax changes separately.   To control for

longer‐term trends in income, the regressions include a time trend.

Another concern when estimating behavioral responses of executives is the role of a firm’s

financial performance in determining executive pay.  ExecuComp data provide specific

information that we use to control for the firm’s financial performance.  Thus, the regressions

include the market value and earnings‐to‐asset ratio of the firm, and purge non‐tax factors from the

estimated response.   

 

24 For example, Berkshire‐Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett, widely regarded as one of the world’s wealthiest

individuals, had earned income of between $100,000 and $135,000 (2004$) based on our calculations from

ExecuComp data.  That alone would not put him in the top tax bracket, although he almost surely has other

income that puts him in the top bracket.
Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation

18

4.  Empirical Results:  ExecuComp and SOI

This section presents regression results, using ExecuComp and SOI data, for different measures of

income and for various samples and specifications.  Note that we refer to our core estimates from

the ExecuComp as “earned income” elasticities.  Some other papers (Goolsbee, 2000, and HL, 2000)

have referred to estimates for essentially the same income definition as “taxable income”

elasticities.  By labeling their income measure “taxable income,” they assume that an array of

factors such as marital status, spousal income, and deductions and exemptions do not vary across

time or across individuals – other than what is captured by fixed effects and time‐trends.  Because

it is likely that those variables do vary greatly across individuals and across time, we label the

same measure “earned income before deductions.”  That approach recognizes that executive

income from the firm is just one of the margins at which executives (and their families) can

respond to changes in tax rates.  We do refer to some of our estimates from the SOI as “taxable

income” elasticities because the income measure for those regressions includes both spousal

income and income from sources outside the executive’s firm as well as deductions and

exemptions.

4.1  Basic Results

We first present estimated earned income elasticities for executives in the ExecuComp, and then

comparable results for all high‐income taxpayers using SOI data, see Table 4.1, Table 4.2, and Table

4.4 to Table 4.7.  The variables of interest are specified in logs, so that the coefficients on the tax

variables represent elasticities.  Key results from the various tables are summarized in Table 4.10.

Our basic specification, which includes only the current after‐tax share, a time trend, and

individual fixed effects, suggests a modest elasticity of earned income with respect to the after‐tax

share for the full 1992 to 2004 period, equal to 0.34 (with a standard error of 0.07).   More

sophisticated specifications, controlling for other factors, including future tax rates, firm‐specific

characteristics (e.g., the firm’s market value and earnings to assets ratio) and the million‐dollar

rule, generate different results, however.   The contemporaneous tax effect is substantially higher

(1.09), but the future tax (or anticipatory) effect is negative and even larger, see column 4 of Table
Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation

19

4.1.25  On net, the implied earned income elasticity is negative (‐0.37).  Other control variables are of

the expected sign.

Sensitivity over Time and for Different Specifications

Estimated elasticities are quite sensitive to both the time‐period and the econometric specification.   

In the basic specification, the earned‐income elasticity (0.48) for the tax provisions of OBRA 93 is

quite different from that for EGTRRA (1.09).  That sensitivity is still present when controlling for

other factors, though the pattern is reversed, with the estimated elasticity now larger for the early

1990s than for the early 2000s.  Controlling for other factors yields much smaller estimated (net)

earned‐income elasticities,26 ranging from ‐0.70 to 0.19 when including all of the control variables

versus a range from 0.34 to 1.09 with the basic specification.27   

Estimated responses to the increase in the top tax rate, enacted as part of OBRA 93, imply an

elasticity of 0.82 that is offset by an anticipatory effect of ‐0.63, see Table 4.1, column 5.  The net

earned income elasticity of 0.19 is somewhat smaller than that estimated by Goolsbee (2000) for the

same period.  (Goolsbee’s results suggest a 1.16 contemporaneous and a 0.4 net elasticity.)28  It is

worth noting that the shifting of income due to anticipated tax changes is similar in our estimates

for both of the sub‐periods (1992 to 1995 and 2000 to 2004).  Both our results and Goolsbee’s are in

sharp contrast to HL (2000), who estimate a negative net earned income elasticity (‐0.59) using data

on CEOs.  Using Goolsbee’s specification, they find that income shifting dominates the current tax

effect. 29

 

25 Those results, based on long‐term executives (i.e., executives appearing multiples years), are compared to

estimates for all executives and discussed when we address the possible influence of attrition on our

estimates.

26 Note, the net elasticity is the sum of the estimated coefficients on the current after‐tax share and the future

after‐tax share, see Table 4.1.

27 Estimates are also generated for the ExecuComp using a method based on that employed by Gruber and

Saez (2002).  Observations are compared (i.e., differenced) across two years, one in a year prior to a tax change

and one in a year after a tax change.  For both OBRA 93 and EGTRRA, estimates were extremely sensitive to

the choice of the beginning and end years.  Additionally, standard errors are generally very large.

28 Note that we do not have ExecuComp data for 1991.  Apparently that year was included in the sample at

one time, but is no longer present.

29 However, when they include the current value of (unexercised) options held by the CEO as well as the

current and future value of the firm’s stock market returns, they find that, for OBRA 93, both the current tax

response and the anticipatory (income‐shifting) responses are small, resulting in a net elasticity that is close to

zero.  Even with those additional variables, HL’s results are sensitive across time‐periods and the estimated

tax coefficients often do not carry the predicted sign.
Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation

20

HL’s results are consistent with ours in terms of their sensitivity over time.   In fact, when

employing Goolsbee’s specification, HL find inconsistent results in all regressions over the period

1980 to 1994 (broken down for periods 1980 to 1983, 1985 to 1989, and 1990 to 1994), with the

wrong sign on at least one of the key coefficients or the wrong sign for the net elasticity.    

The negative net earned income elasticities estimated using the 1992 to 2004 and 2000 to 2004

ExecuComp data (see columns 4 and 6 of Table 4.1) are inconsistent with standard economic

theory, and would suggest our empirical model is poorly identified.   It is possible that

identification is compromised by non‐tax‐related changes in income (e.g., business‐cycle effects)

that are not fully accounted for by firm‐specific information (such as firm market value).  The

extreme volatility of executive income makes isolating a tax response especially difficult.   

Several factors may explain why the results for OBRA 93 are different.  The first factor is the

change in the top federal marginal rate, which occurred in each year from 1992 to 1995.  Thus, at

least one of the two key independent variables (the current and future after‐tax shares) is changing

each year from 1992 to 1994.  Between 1994 and 1995, however, tax rates are constant and allow for

the identification of the counterfactual income trend.  It is possible that the unexplained portion of

the large increase in income from 1994 to 1995 leads to the resulting positive net elasticity estimate,

since that implies that income growth from 1992 to 1994 would have been similar, or at least quite

large, had the tax increase not been enacted.  Whether the 1992 to 1995 regression is well‐identified

depends, to a large degree, on whether, after controlling for the other covariates, income growth

between 1994 and 1995 is indicative of what would have occurred from 1992 to 1994 absent the tax

increase or whether the growth from 1994 and 1995 was an aberration.  

The 2000 to 2004 period includes a recession, which coincided with extreme volatility in the stock

market and in the incomes of executives.  As shown in Figure 2.4, earned income at the 95th

percentile falls at a much faster rate than the S&P 500.  That decline occurs as tax rates decline.  In

2004, when tax rates were unchanged, income rose rapidly, and at a much faster rate than the S&P

500.  It is possible that the inclusion of firm‐specific information and individual fixed effects still

imperfectly controls for income volatility, leaving a spurious correlation between the rising after‐

tax share and the sharp drop in income.
Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation

21

Attrition and Sample Selection

An additional consideration with the ExecuComp data is attrition.  Nearly half of executives

sampled appear in four or fewer years (from 1992 to 2004), suggesting that attrition is potentially

important, see Table 4.2.  We minimize the potential bias from nonrandom attrition by estimating

fixed‐effect regressions.  While the lack of observable characteristics in the ExecuComp prevents us

from gauging the impact of attrition across demographic factors, there appears to be little

difference in estimates when restricting the sample to those appearing in multiple years, as

compared to estimates without any restrictions on the number of times that an executive appears

in the sample.   

To better gauge the impact of attrition in the ExecuComp data, we estimate earned‐income

elasticities separately both for long‐term executives (defined as appearing in the sample every year

or at least 5 years, depending on the time‐period) and for all executives (with no floor on the

number of times an executive is sampled), see Table 4.3 and compare to Table 4.2.  Overall, we

observe slightly smaller net earned income elasticities for long‐term executives (between 0.19 and ‐

0.70) than for all executives (0.58 and ‐0.51), though results are similar for the groups in the full

period.30   The largest difference is observed over the 1992 to 1995 period, in which the elasticity of

all executives (0.58) is three times that of long‐term executives (0.19), due exclusively to an increase

in the estimated current elasticity, see column 5 of Table 4.1 and Table 4.2.  The differences in

estimated elasticities across the two samples are not as large as the differences observed over time.  

Non‐random attrition, however, remains a potential source for bias, to varying degrees, in both

sets of estimates.  For example, executives experiencing drops in income may be more likely to fall

from the sample, while those with increasing income may be more likely to remain in the sample.   

To the extent that attrition is important, and follows the pattern just discussed, then a declining

after‐tax share (early 1990s) is likely to lead to a downward bias in the estimated elasticity, whereas

an increasing after‐tax share (early 2000s) is likely to have the opposite effect.  While the response

of long‐term executives is less likely to be affected by such attrition, their responsiveness may be

very different from that of all executives.  Depending on the question, the most relevant earned

income elasticity could be that estimated for the entire sample, including all entry into and exit

 

30 Goolsbee (2000) focuses primarily on those appearing in at least four years, but notes that his results are not

sensitive to that decision.
Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation

22

from the sample.   Also, note that incomes may fall for reasons that are unrelated to taxes and that

the model’s controls do not adequately take into account – for example, mean reversion or

retirement.  In such cases, attrition could actually improve estimates by fortuitously removing

anomalous observations from the sample.

Comparison to Statistics of Income Earned Income

The basic results from the SOI sample suggest that earned income for high‐income taxpayers is far

more responsive to tax rate changes than it is for other executives, see columns 1 to 3 of Table 4.4.  

The degree to which the elasticities are different is striking:  the SOI estimate of 3.22 is about 10

times that of the ExecuComp.  Although the two estimates are based on somewhat different

measures of income (SOI income includes income earned outside the firm as well as spousal

income), it is unlikely those other sources of income alone account for nearly an order of

magnitude difference in the elasticity.  The basic specification also yields earned income elasticities

that are stable over time, in the range of 3.2 to 3.3.

With additional controls, however, both the level and the stability change.  Controlling for

anticipation effects and market characteristics lowers the SOI estimated elasticity by about 37

percent, to a net 2.0 for 1992 to 2003, and 0.4 for 2000 to 2003.  A concern with those estimates is

that the current and future tax rates are of the wrong sign, suggesting that taxpayers shift income

in such a way that raises their tax liability.  That is, current income falls with an increase in the

current after‐tax share and rises with an increase in the future after‐tax share.   The SOI

specifications may be under‐identified because of the lack of firm‐specific information in the SOI –

information that would likely control for a portion of the income shifting that is not related to tax

factors.  Restricting the sample to 1992 to 1995 yields negative (though statistically insignificant)

coefficients for both the current and future estimated coefficients.

The SOI‐based estimates are quite different from Goolsbee’s (0.40) and ours (0.19), suggesting that

ExecuComp executives may not be representative of all high‐income taxpayers.   Supporting

evidence for that difference is the much greater volatility of executive incomes, including the

observation that executive incomes rose much more rapidly during the 1990s and declined more

sharply after 2000 than did incomes for the highest‐income taxpayers.  Feenberg and Poterba (2000)

have also noted that CEO compensation increased much more rapidly from 1990 to 1995 than did
Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation

23

AGI for the top half of the top one percent.  Whether that volatility reflects differences in the

behavioral response of executives to taxation or simply generates identification problems remains

an open question.  

Broader Measures of Income

Part of the response of taxpayers to tax rate changes is shifting income between taxable and non‐

taxable sources.  Examining behavioral responses for a more comprehensive income measure can

provide some indication of whether behavioral responses are the result of shifting among income

sources (i.e., shifting income outside the taxable base or expanding the use of deductions in

response to a tax increase) or whether they reflect changes in labor supply (broadly defined), in

which case work effort, leisure, or other non‐market activities are the margins on which people are

more likely to respond.  The fungibilty of executive compensation, recently documented in the

popular press, is indicative of the potential for a wide array of taxpayer responses.

Because there are fewer margins by which to respond (and because the denominator is larger), the

elasticity for broader measures of compensation is likely to be lower than for the narrower income

measures used in the previous regressions.  The broader measures of income examined here

include total compensation, gross income, and full taxable income (less capital gains).  Total

compensation in the ExecuComp data is the sum of earned income, restricted stock grants, the

Black‐Scholes value of unexercised options granted, and other income.  Gross income and full

taxable income are calculated for the SOI, where gross income equals total income before

exemptions and deductions (and less capital gains and Social Security benefits, which are not

always observed), and taxable income equals gross income less exemptions and deductions.   

The estimated elasticity of total compensation with respect to the after‐tax share is ‐0.95 when

including only a time‐trend and individual fixed effects, and ‐2.02 with controls for the future

after‐tax share and firm‐specific variables, see columns 1 and 4 in Table 4.5.  The negative

elasticities contradict standard theory and, as in the case of earned income, may result from the

sharp growth and volatility of stock options.  Of course, some of that response could reflect an

increase in non‐taxable or tax‐deferred compensation.  By the time individuals realize income, the

higher tax rates may not be in effect.  Also, recall that the regressions are identified using time

(and, to a limited extent, state) variation in marginal tax rates.  We impose restrictions on the
Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation

24

variation in compensation over time by including a linear time‐trend.  An alternative approach,

including year dummies (instead of a time‐trend), would impose stronger controls for non‐tax

related changes in stock options or total compensation.  Year dummies, however, would eliminate

the bulk of the variation in the marginal tax rates.  Variation in state rates may help with

identification, but those rates are tied exclusively to geographic location and much of their

influence is absorbed by the fixed effects.

The SOI results for full taxable income (excluding capital gains) and gross income are similar to the

corresponding earned income estimates and show almost no variation across time‐periods, see

Table 4.6 and Table 4.7.  One difference of note is that the OBRA 93 estimated current and future

elasticities, in the full specification, are of the correct sign, though not statistically different from

zero in either case.  That suggests that for that period, the tax response is moderate to small.  More

generally, broader income measures seem even less sensitive to tax rates.  While that finding is

consistent with other research, the inconsistent signs and the sensitivity of tax effects over time

caution against reading too much into those results.

Decomposition of Behavioral Response, by Level and Type of Income

Recent work evaluating the behavioral responses to taxation emphasizes the role of institutional

factors (Slemrod and Kopczuk 2002, Goolsbee 2000, Kopczuk 2005), arguing that the elasticity of

taxable income is not a structural parameter, but rather a function of the tax system.  Taxpayers are

more responsive when opportunities to avoid taxes are more prevalent (or less costly).  Features

that influence responses to taxes include the availability of substitutable forms of compensation

(such as the ability of firms to use non‐taxable fringe benefits as opposed to taxable compensation)

as well as the expected penalties for evasion.  Higher‐income executives may be more responsive

to tax changes because they have greater opportunities for tax avoidance; however, their

unobservable characteristics may differ from those of other executives, so we cannot conclude

definitively that differences in estimates across income groups are due to institutional factors.  The

remainder of this section examines whether higher‐income executives have higher elasticities.

We estimate elasticities (for executives) for different segments of the income distribution and for

various components of income.  We present results at different (permanent) income cutoffs and for

salaries and long‐term incentive plan (LTIP) payouts, see Table 4.8 and Table 4.9).  The permanent
Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation

25

income cutoffs are set at $650,000 (columns 4 to 6) and $1 million (columns 7 to 9).  In each case, the

results are compared to the basic elasticities, see Table 4.1 and Table 4.2.    

The results suggest that the higher the permanent income of executives, the larger the

contemporaneous tax elasticity of earned income.  For the full period, the estimated elasticity with

respect to the current after‐tax share rises from 1.09 among all executives to 1.35 for executives

with more than $650,000 in permanent income, and 1.71 for those with at least one million dollars

(all statistically significant).   The results also show that shifting of income over time is stronger

among the highest‐earning executives:  the coefficient on the future tax rate rises from ‐1.46 to ‐1.90

to ‐2.54, respectively.  It is only for 1992 to 1995, however, that the contemporaneous response

dominates the anticipatory response, yielding a positive estimate for the net elasticity.   

If wages and salaries are not as easily shifted compared to other types of compensation (e.g., bonus

income and stock options), then the elasticity for wages and salaries should be smaller than for all

earned income.  To test that hypothesis, we estimate separately the response of the wage and salary

component of income (columns 4 to 6 of Table 4.8) and of LTIPs.  One complication is that the

median reported LTIP payout in the sample of executives is zero; in fact, only the top 10 percent of

the sample ever reports any LTIP payouts.  To estimate these regressions in logs requires that we

add a constant (1) to the LTIP variable.  

Our results show that wages and salaries are much less responsive to taxes than is earned income,

see Table 4.9.  The coefficient on the current after‐tax share with respect to wages and salaries is

0.24 for long‐term executives (0.35 for all executives), much lower than the earned income

estimates of 1.10 (1.33 for all executives).   The estimated anticipatory tax responses are also

dramatically smaller on the salary margin than on the overall earned income margin.   Those

results suggest that salaries are not the main avenue through which executives respond to tax

changes and that earned income responses are largely driven by income sources other than wages

and salaries.

One margin for the non‐wage and salary response is long‐term incentive payouts (LTIPs).  LTIPs

show some responsiveness to changes in tax rates, see Table 4.9, columns 7 to 9.  The short‐run (or

transitory) elasticity seems to be well identified only in shorter time periods around tax changes.  
Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation

26

One explanation for that is that the low rate of reported LTIPs makes it difficult to identify any

response in the full 1992 to 2004 period.  We therefore focus on the OBRA 93 and EGTRRA;

estimates for both of those periods show theoretically consistent results and support the hypothesis

that behavioral responses are larger for non‐wage and salary sources of earned income.

Summary of Elasticity Estimates

We summarize the myriad of tax elasticity estimates from our richest specification in Table 4.10,

which presents estimated coefficients for both the contemporaneous and future after‐tax share, as

well as the number of observations and executives or tax units.  We present results along four

dimensions:  data source (columns 1 and 2), time period (columns 3 to 5), level of income (columns

6 and 7), and type of income (columns 8 to 10).   The first finding is that the source of data itself

contributes to the uncertainty in measuring behavioral responses at the top of the income

distribution.   The elasticity seems to be both larger and more concentrated on the future tax rate

for all high‐income taxpayers than for executives.  That finding could be interpreted as evidence

that high‐income taxpayers are a heterogeneous group and differ in their behavioral response.  

Other potential explanations include differences in the construction of the two datasets, including

the fact that the observed margins (income sources) for responding are different.   The second

finding is that the earned income elasticity is sensitive to the time and therefore the tax changes

examined.   The contemporaneous tax effect is large in response to OBRA 93 (0. 82) but effectively

zero for EGTRRA (‐0.01).  Finally, the elasticities of total compensation and of wage and salary

income are smaller than for earned income, suggesting that much of the response represents

shifting between sources of income.   Section 5 presents a more comprehensive analysis of shifting.   

First, we discuss why executives may be different from all high‐income taxpayers.
Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation

27

Other Explanations:  Why Executives Might be Different

We have shown not only that tax responses appear much larger for all high‐income taxpayers than

for the subset of top executives, but also that the non‐tax related growth in executive pay has

followed a different path from that followed by top income earners more generally.  The elasticity

estimates are notably consistent with the empirical tax literature that finds large (or larger)

elasticities for very high‐income individuals, but small permanent elasticities for executives (see

Goolsbee, and HL).  We now discuss why executives may respond differently to tax changes than

other tax filers with similar incomes.

First, executives likely have greater ability to shift income, both inter‐ and intratemporally between

sources than do other high‐income taxpayers.  That is consistent with Goolsbee’s (2000) finding

that “as much as 20 percent” of the total drop in wages and salaries among the top 1 million

taxpayers after OBRA 1993  may have been due to individuals in the ExecuComp.

Second, executives have an unusual relationship with their employer, the shareholder.  In

principle, executives are merely agents with a fiduciary responsibility to serve the interests of

shareholders.  However, some analysts allege that the relationship is often turned on its head.  

Because most shareholders are not privy to the day‐to‐day operations of the firm, corporate

executives may, to a degree, work to serve their own interests at the expense of shareholders – in

part by granting themselves (sometimes clandestinely) enormous compensation packages with

lavish perks, some of which may insulate executives from tax changes.   In addition, a growing and

often clandestine source of executive compensation that may insulate executives from tax changes

is the use of tax gross‐ups.31  According to the Wall Street Journal, “[A] number of companies are

paying extra sums to cover executivesʹ personal tax bills.  Many companies are paying taxes due on

core elements of executive pay, such as stock grants, signing bonuses and severance packages.  

Others are reimbursing taxes on corporate perquisites, which are treated as income by the Internal

Revenue Service.  They run the gamut from personal travel aboard corporate jets to country‐club

memberships and shopping excursions.”  That suggests that, at least on paper, many executives

 

31 Maremont, Mark,ʺLatest Twist in Corporate Pay:  Tax‐Free Income for Executives,ʺ Wall Street Journal,

December 22, 2005, A1.
Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation

28

may not bear the burden (or reap the benefits) of changing tax rates – and thus would not be

expected to respond in any way to changes in tax rates.32   

Third, tournament theory, first articulated by Lazear and Rosen (1981) and often applied to

executive compensation, posits that lucrative compensation packages received by executives do

little to motivate the executives, but do motivate lower‐level employees that aspire to one‐day

become executives.33  Consider the analogy of a professional golf tournament where prize money –

the winner can sometimes receive upwards of $1 million – serves to motivate not just the winner,

but all of the other participants vying for the title.  Paradoxically, while tournament theory predicts

small behavioral responses for executives, it does not imply that overall behavioral responses are

small – just that those responses are made by other employees in the corporation.  Another

characteristic of a tournament‐based pay structure is that participants are rewarded based on

relative performance as opposed to absolute performance.34  That is a desirable pay structure for

some activities, where absolute performance is difficult to measure.  The golfer, like the executive,

is measured against the performance of his peers:  What would be a mediocre golf score in good

weather conditions may be a winning score in rainy or windy conditions.  Likewise, for the

corporation, performance considered mediocre during a strong economy may represent a

phenomenal achievement during a weak one.35

Finally, while earned income (before deductions) appears less responsive to changes in tax rates for

executives than for other very high income taxpayers, it does not necessarily follow that executives

are also less responsive when measured by full taxable income.  It may be that incomes for

executives are very responsive to tax changes, but that the margins by which executives respond

 

32 Of course, while some executives may appear to be shielded from tax changes, they may in fact bear some

burden.  For example, tax changes may affect changes in salaries for executives, despite tax gross‐ups, and

other forms of compensation may respond to changing rates.  Some allege that tax gross‐ups are simply a way

for corporations to clandestinely increase executive salaries.  In fact, the SEC generally does not require

corporations to report tax gross‐ups (under pre‐2007 SEC rules).  While competition should minimize the

ability of executives to pursue avenues that do not best serve their shareholders, the recent rapid rise of

executive compensation, along with outright fraud on the part of some firms, has done little to assuage critics.

33 Empirical findings by Eriksson (1999) for executives in Denmark are generally consistent with tournament

theory.

34 This applies to longer‐term behavioral responses and does not apply to the intertemporal shifting of income

or to shifting between different sources of income that face different tax treatment. 35 While tournament theory seems to fit the market for corporate executives more closely than most markets,

it may well be prevalent in other areas.  In fact, in any occupation where promotion is accompanied by an

increase in salary, tournament theory may play a role.
Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation

29

are not reported in the executive compensation data, where, for example, income from outside the

firm, spousal income, and deductions and exemptions are not reported.  Our earned income

measure from the tax data is designed to closely approximate the income measure constructed

from the ExecuComp, but the two measures are not identical.  While the SOI earned income

measure does not include deductions and exemptions, it does include earned income from all

sources – for executives that means not just income from the firm, and for married filers it includes

the spouses earned income (if any).

5.  Income Shifting in the ExecuComp Data

In this section, we discuss the tax treatment of the major forms of executive compensation and

evaluate more directly the impact various taxes may have on the composition of executive

compensation.  We follow HL’s (2000) approach, and first describe the intuition behind the

predicted tax effects.  We then present regression results for the share of executive compensation

paid in stock options rather than cash.

Hall and Liebman (1998 and 2000) apply agency theory to explain stock‐based compensation in

executive pay and show how the tax treatment of various sources of income can alter the desired

compensation packages that firms pay their executives.  To evaluate the tax advantage of options

relative to cash, they compare a pretax cash payment of $1 with an option payment with an

equivalent post‐tax net‐present‐value (NPV) to the company.   They show that the tax advantage of

options declines with the corporate tax rate and increases with the personal and capital gains tax

rates.  Additionally, because of the so‐called “million‐dollar rule,” performance‐based pay (i.e.

options) is tax‐preferred for executives with more than $1 million in annual compensation.  That is

because “non‐performance‐based” pay (i.e., salary) in excess of $1 million is not deductible from

the firm’s revenues.

The most direct advantage to executives of incentive‐based pay generally arises from the deferral

of tax liabilities.  The benefit to the executive of deferral is offset, however, by the deferral of tax

deductibility for the corporation.  As such, the tax advantages of nonqualified options from a

combined (executive and corporate) perspective are not straightforward, and change as personal,
Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation

30

capital gains, and corporate tax rates change. 36  It is therefore useful to examine the marginal

impact of each tax separately.

Corporate Tax Rate.  The lower the corporate tax rate, all else equal, the more favored are options

relative to cash, because the deduction against corporate revenues is deferred with options,

whereas it is immediate with cash compensation.  Thus, low corporate tax rates lower the cost of

deferral to the firm and favor options.

Personal Tax Rate. A lower personal income tax rate tends to favor options relative to cash, all else

equal.  Personal tax rates affect the value of options because returns to nonqualified options are

taxed (when realized) at the personal tax rate as opposed to the capital gains rate.  Thus, the lower

the personal income tax rate, the greater the advantage from avoiding the capital gains tax and

using options.   

Capital Gains Tax Rate.  The lower the capital gains tax rate, all else equal, the less tax favored are

options relative to cash. NQSOs are taxed at the individual income tax rate, and avoid the capital

gains tax.  Therefore, a lower capital gains rate reduces the tax savings associated with options.  

HL (2000) show that through 1986, options were at a tax disadvantage relative to cash.  The Tax

Reform Act of 1986, by substantially lowering individual tax rates and raising capital gains rates,

shifted the balance to favor options.  The 1990s tax acts reduced the tax advantage of options by

raising individual income tax rates (OBRA 90 and OBRA 93) and lowering capital gains tax rates

(TRA 97).  The net effect of those tax changes left options at a slight tax advantage of $4 per $100 in

pre‐tax compensation (HL, 2000).  Figure 3.1 depicts top federal marginal tax rates on earned

income, capital gains, dividends, and corporate income since the late 1980s.   

It is the variation in rates on the various sources of income that provide the impetus for the

empirical strategy we use to measure income shifting across tax bases.  Note that the previous

discussion does not address the cross‐sectional variation in federal personal, capital gains, and

corporate tax rates.  Very few executives in the ExecuComp database would qualify for the lower

 

36 See discussion of tax treatment of non‐qualified options in section 2.
Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation

31

capital gains tax rates or a personal income tax rate below 33 percent, thus cross‐sectional variation

in the tax schedules is likely not relevant here.  

As with the earlier empirical analysis, we rely almost exclusively on variation in the different tax

rates over time.  The top marginal state tax rate does introduce some cross‐sectional variation,

based on the executive’s location.   Our measure of the corporate tax rate − the maximum statutory

rate − is one where we arguably could introduce cross‐sectional variation.  Corporate marginal tax

rates can vary for many reasons, including tax‐loss carry‐backs and carry‐forwards, investment tax

credits, and the corporate alternative minimum tax, adding potentially identifying variation.  There

are at least two problems with simulating a firm’s corporate tax rate.  First, the data needed to

estimate the rate are difficult to access.  Second, it is not clear that cross‐sectional variation in the

corporate tax rate provides identifying variation.  Firms are subject to different tax rates for reasons

that are independent of compensation decisions.  Nonetheless, that issue could be addressed more

formally in future work.

One advantage of the time period we examine is that the rising and then declining use of stock

options may enhance our ability to identify non‐tax factors.  The proportion of executives reporting

any stock option grants in the ExecuComp data increased from 65 percent in 1992 to 80 percent in

2001, but decreased to 73 percent by 2004.   HL (2000) argue that the primary factors explaining the

growth of options are related to corporate governance and the rise in the power of shareholders.  

HL control for the share of company stock owned by institutional investors, the size of the board,

and the fraction of the firm’s board members who are inside directors (i.e., those having substantial

ownership in the corporation).  We use variables included in the ExecuComp data, such as whether

the firm has an annual director retainer, a director meeting fee, and the number of board meetings.  

Our regressions also control for the firm’s financial situation (market value, earnings‐asset ratio,

and implied volatility of company stock), and for individual fixed effects, as well as a time trend.   

Table 5.1 presents regression results.  The dependent variable is the fraction of total compensation

that is in the form of either stock‐option grants (columns 1 to 4) or restricted stock (columns 5 to 8).   

We define total compensation to include the Black‐Scholes value of stock‐option grants plus salary

and bonus, LTIP payouts, and any other income.   The share is regressed on the log of the after‐tax

share for the statutory personal, capital gains, and corporate tax rates.     
Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation

32

The predicted coefficients for the after‐tax shares are positive for the personal and corporate tax

rates, and negative for the capital gains rate.  Similar to HL, we find the wrong sign on the personal

and the capital gains rate.  The only tax variable of the correct sign in HL’s analysis is not identified

in our model (estimated with standard errors near 1) and is of the wrong sign.  Are results are not

sensitive to the set of control variables.  Thus, time variation in the relevant tax rates, resulting

largely from four discrete points (1993, 1994, 1997, and 2002), does not seem sufficient to identify

behavioral responses in this case.   

Table 5.1 also presents results for restricted stock, which typically is not considered performance‐

based.  Restricted stock vests over time, and may be taxed at the personal rate (on the value of the

restricted stock) as it vests, or at the grant date (in which case appreciation would be subject to the

capital gains rate).  The story here is similar to that for options, with the additional complication

that tax effects seem more sensitive to specification and sample choice.

 

6.  Conclusions

This paper examines recent income trends and behavioral responses to tax changes for some of the

very highest income U.S. taxpayers.  Special attention is paid to the top ten and top one percent of

all U.S. taxpayers and to a sample of corporate executives, most of whom fall into the top one

percent of the income distribution.

We document the growth in upper incomes from 1992 to 2003 for high‐income taxpayers and from

1992 to 2004 for executives.   We find that (consistent with PS 2003) most of the growth and

volatility in incomes has been concentrated within the top one percent of taxpayers.  Income for the

very top of the distribution grew sharply through 2000, and then declined sharply from 2000 to

2002.  Outside the top centile, income patterns are much more stable.  Focusing on executives, we

find income patterns that are similar to, but more volatile than, those for the very highest income

taxpayers.  We also document how the composition of executive compensation has changed.  We

find that salary income has been relatively stable, while the value of stock options, stock grants,

and bonuses has grown tremendously; for CEOs, HL (2000) document such growth back to at least

the early 1980s.  We show that the trend is similar for executives more generally and the rapid

growth in those forms of compensation during the 1980s continued through the 1990s, before
Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation

33

dropping sharply in 2000.  By 2003, executive compensation had begun to recover.  Since 1993 (and

at least through 2004), the value of stock options has been the largest source of executive

compensation, growing by 145 percent since 1992, despite a drop of roughly 50 percent since 2000.

To measure transitory and permanent (or long‐term) behavioral responses to the tax changes of the

1990s and 2000s, we employ Goolsbee’s techniques both for executives and for high‐income

taxpayers.  For executives, we find a permanent earned income elasticity for the early 1990s of 0.8

(with no anticipation effect), which is substantially higher than Goolsbee’s estimate.  For 2000 to

2004, the estimate is much larger, but the results are suspect because the coefficient for the

anticipated effect has the wrong sign.  Limiting the analysis to only taxpayers with the highest

incomes yields estimated coefficients that carry the correct sign.  The estimated short‐term

responses are larger for the higher‐income groups, although not necessarily the permanent

responses.

Finally, we follow HL (2000) in examining how the composition of executive compensation

responds to changes in relative (corporate, personal, and capital gains) tax rates.  But while

estimates differ substantially from those of HL, who focus on CEOs and examine an earlier period,

it is noteworthy that both sets of estimates often yield estimated coefficients with signs that

contradict theory.  That and the fact that our core elasticity estimates differ greatly across time‐

periods and across our two datasets suggest that non‐tax factors both are extremely important and

make identification difficult.  That observation is consistent with several other papers (Slemrod

1996, Saez 2004, Kopczuk 2005, Giertz 2006) that all show a great deal of sensitivity surrounding

taxable income elasticity estimates.

While the elasticity of taxable income is a very important parameter, it has been difficult to pin

down.  That suggests three directions for future research.  One direction would continue to

improve estimation techniques and develop more sophisticated instrumenting strategies to control

for non‐tax related trends in income.  Along those lines, Kopczuk (2005) treats mean reversion and

secular trends in income with separate variables, arguing that trying to control for those two

separate effects with a single variable will likely be insufficient.  A second and related approach

would focus on the underlying income trends in order to get a better idea of what non‐tax factors

may be driving them.  A third would focus on individual sources of income.  Studying individual
Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation

34

sources (or components) of taxable income can be misleading if results are used to imply an overall

elasticity, but a narrower focus may make identification less difficult and may give an indication of

the key components driving the overall response.

Appendix.  Top Income Shares:  Extending Piketty and Saez (2003)

An examination of upper‐income shares suggests that the rapid growth in executive compensation

is not exclusive to executives, but is reflective of the overall pattern of income growth at the very

top of the income distribution.  We build on Piketty and Saez (2003) by calculating the share of

income received by different fractiles within the top decile of tax filers for years 1992 to 2003.  They

use primarily SOI data based on actual tax returns to provide a detailed analysis of top U.S. income

shares from 1913 to 1998.37  PS report that from 1921 until the U.S. entered World War II, the share

of gross income accruing to the top decile is always greater than 40 percent and on a couple of

occasions exceeds 46 percent.  But, during WWII, the top decile experienced a sharp drop in its

share of gross income, falling below 32 percent for 1944.  Furthermore, before WWII, sharp drops

in the share of income accruing to the top decile were quickly recouped, often within a year or two,

whereas the pattern post‐WWII was very different.  The top decile’s share of income remained flat

until the early 1980s, when it steadily grew from less than 33 percent of total income in 1981 to over

41 percent in 1997 and 1998.  In fact, by the middle of the 1990s, the top decile had recouped much

of what it had lost during WWII.

While there is no indubitable explanation for the sharp decline of the top decile during WWII and

then for its subsequent rise beginning in the early 1980s, PS (2003) and Saez and Veall (2005) put

forth a hypothesis.  PS suggest that the shift toward a steeply progressive income tax schedule,

plus wage controls during WWII, especially hurt the top decile.38  The steeper tax rates on income

coupled with high top rates for the estate tax may have prevented the top decile from quickly

recouping what it had lost during WWII.  PS also emphasize the shift in social norms, which may

have manifested itself in the increasing role of unions and the adoption of transfer programs such

 

37 Their data on the top centile begins in 1913, while that for the top decile begins in 1917.

38 Piketty and Saez note that the top marginal rate on income rose from 20 percent in the early 1930s to 91

percent in 1944.  While those top rates did not directly impact most taxpayers, they did affect those at the very

top of the income distribution.
Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation

35

as Social Security and Aid to Families with Dependent Children, which in turn may have

restrained income growth at the top of the distribtution.  Because of the abruptness of the drop in

the share of income at the very top, PS downplay the role of both technological change and of

changing education levels.

With respect to the increase in top income shares in recent decades, PS continue to downplay the

role of technological change, while Saez and Veall are agnostic with respect to the role of less

progressive taxation at the very top of the distribution.  On one hand, the concentration of U.S.

incomes at the very top of the income distribution has greatly increased in recent decades, as top

tax rates have dropped substantially.  On the other hand, they note that the trend in the share of

income at the top of the Canadian income distribution closely parallels that of the U.S., despite a

much smaller decline in Canadian tax rates.  Saez and Veall then put forth a “brain drain”

hypothesis that could help explain the similar trends between the two countries.  The hypothesis

argues that the proximity, similarities in culture (including language), and relative ease of

migration between Canada and the U.S. could have an equilibrating effect on top incomes between

the two countries.  It follows that the drop in top U.S. rates may have induced emigration from

Canada, lessening high‐income labor supply in Canada and thus pushing up incomes for that

group.  Saez and Veall note that the growth of top income shares in the United Kingdom and

France is consistent with that hypothesis:  Top income shares in the United Kingdom rose

substantially, but by a smaller amount than in the U.S. or Canada, while top income shares in

France remained stable.  It is also possible that changes in top U.S. tax rates induced some

emigration of high‐income individuals from the U.K. to the U.S., where both countries share the

same language, but relatively little emigration from France.

For 1992 to 1998, our estimated income shares for fractiles in the top decile mirror those presented

by PS, and, for 1992 to 2003 the fractile analysis is consistent with the examination of upper‐income

percentiles discussed earlier.  While we focus the fractile analysis on gross income (the measure

most often used by PS), we also present fractiles based on taxable and earned income, see Table

A.1.  The shares are different for the different income measures, but the trends are the same.

Fractile income growth.  The patterns for the top decile, the top 5 percent, and the top centile are

all quite similar, with income rising sharply from 1994 to 2000 and falling sharply from 2000 to
Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation

36

2003.   The average annual increase in the top decile between 1994 and 2000 was 4.3 percent, see

Appendix Table A.1.  From 2000 to 2003, gross income for that group fell by an annual average of

1.8 percent.39

For the full period, 1992 to 2003, income in the top decile grew by a total of 20.8 percent, compared

to 14.1 percent for all tax filers.  Within the top decile, however, that growth was heavily skewed

toward those at the upper end:  For those in the 90th to 95th percentiles income growth was 15.1

percent, just slightly higher than the overall average.  For those in the 95th to 99thpercentile that rate

was 20.1 percent, or nearly one‐third larger.  And, for the top tenth of the top centile, total income

growth was 32.6 percent, or well over twice the rate for the bottom half of the top decile.

Fractile income shares.  The top decile did quite well from 1992 to 2003 when measured not only

by overall income growth, but also by their share of total income (relative to all taxpayers).  Not

surprisingly, that performance is not reflected throughout the top decile, but once again is driven

by the top centile, see Figure A.1 and Table A.2.  The share of income received by the 90th to 95th

percentiles increased by less than one percent from 1992 to 2003, while for the 95th to 99th

percentiles it increased by a total of 4.7 percent.  The share of income received by the top centile, as

a whole, grew 10 percent, while the share for the top one‐hundredth of the top centile grew 17.7

percent.  In fact, of the total $1.2 trillion increase in gross income from 1992 to 2003, over 49 percent

accrued to the top decile.  Of the total increase in income within the top decile, 40 percent accrued

to the top centile, and of the increase in income within the top centile, 78 percent accrued to the top

half of the centile, see Table A.2, Panel 4.

However, income shares in the top centile are also the most volatile, see Figure A.2 and Table A.1.  

While those in the 90th to 99th percentile maintained a relatively stable share of income over the

period, those in the top centile experienced big swings.  From 1994 to 2000, during the bull market

on Wall Street, the share of income accruing to the top centile grew at an average rate of 4.3 percent

a year (or by a total of 29.8 percent).  For the top one‐hundredth of the top centile, that number was

10.5 percent (or by a total of 73.2 percent) – nearly two‐and‐a‐half times as large.  From 1998 to

2000, the growth at the top reported by PS continued at an annual rate of 3.5 percent for the top

 

39 Income growth rates are calculated on a per capita basis to account for the growth in the number of tax

returns over the years of our sample.
Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation

37

centile and 8.6 percent for the top one‐hundredth of the top centile.  That trend reversed itself after

2000.  With the stock market’s fall in 2000 and the subsequent recession in 2001, incomes for the top

centile fell and stagnated.  The share of gross income for the top half of the top centile fell by an

annual average of 2.8 percent from 2000 to 2003 and by 5.2 percent for the top one‐hundredth of

the top centile.

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2005, Washington: D.C.  www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/70xx/doc7000/12‐29‐FedTaxRates.pdf

Congressional Budget Office, “Effective Marginal Tax Rates on Labor Income,” November 2005,

Washington: D.C.  www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/68xx/doc6854/11‐10‐LaborTaxation.pdf

Feenberg, Daniel, and James Poterba, “Income Inequality and the Incomes of Very High Income

Taxpayers: Evidence from Tax Returns,” in Tax Policy and the Economy 7, Poterba, J. (Ed.),

1993, Cambridge: MIT Press.

Feenberg, Daniel, and James Poterba, “The Income and Tax Share of Very High‐Income

Households, 1960‐1995,” American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings, May 2000, 90(2),

264‐270.

Feldstein, Martin, “The Effect of Marginal Tax Rates on Taxable Income: A Panel Study of the 1986

Tax Reform Act,” Journal of Political Economy, June 1995, 103 (3), 551‐572.

——, “Tax Avoidance and the Deadweight Loss of the Income Tax,” Review of Economics and

Statistics, November 1999, 4 (81), 674‐680.

Gale, William and Peter Orszag, “An Economic Assessment of Tax Policy in the Bush

Administration, 2001‐2004,” Boston College Law Review, 2004.

Giertz, Seth, “Recent Literature on Taxable‐Income Elasticities,” Congressional Budget Office,

Technical Paper 2004‐16, December 2004, Washington D.C.

——, “A Sensitivity Analysis of the Elasticity of Taxable Income,” Congressional Budget Office,

Working Paper 2005‐01, February 2005, Washington D.C.

www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/60xx/doc6077/WP‐2005‐01.pdf.

——, “The Elasticity of Taxable Income During the 1990s: A Sensitivity Analysis,” Congressional

Budget Office, Working Paper 2006‐03, February 2006, Washington D.C.

http://cbo.gov/ftpdocs/70xx/doc7037/2006‐03.pdf.
Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation

38

Goolsbee, Austan, “What Happens When You Tax the Rich? Evidence from Executive

Compensation,” Journal of Political Economy, 2000, 108 (2), 352‐378.

——, “Evidence on the High‐Income Laffer Curve from Six Decades of Tax Reforms,” Brookings

Papers on Economic Activity, 1999 (2), 1‐47.

Gruber, Jonathan and Emmanuel Saez, “The Elasticity of Taxable Income: Evidence and

Implications,” Journal of Public Economics, April 2002, 84 (1), 1‐32.

Hall, Brian and Jeffrey Liebman,  “Are CEOs Really Paid Like Bureaucrats?,” The Quarterly Journal

of Economics, 1998, 113(3), 653‐691.

——, “The Taxation of Executive Compensation,” in Tax Policy and the Economy, J. Poterba, ed.,

Cambridge: MIT Press, 2000.

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Economics, December 2005, 89(11‐12), 2093‐2119.

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the Revenue Maximizing Tax Rate,” Journal of Public Economics, July 1987, 33 (2), 173‐206.

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Quarterly Journal of Economics, February 2003, 118 (1), 1‐39.  (For an extended version of this

paper, see <www.nber.org/papers/w8467>.)

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Implications,” in Tax Policy and the Economy 18, Poterba, J. (ed.), 2004, Cambridge: MIT

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Lessons from Canadian Evidence,” American Economic Review 95(3), 2005, 831‐849.

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Data,” Journal of Labor Economics, April 1999, 17 (2), 262‐280.

U.S. Department of the Treasury, Internal Revenue Service, 2005, Statistics of Income: Individual

Income Tax Returns 2003 (Washington, D.C.).
Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation

39

Figure 2.1. Composition of ExecuComp Compensation by Source: Mean Values for Those with Fiscal Years Ending in December

Salary

Other Income

LTIP

Bonus

Stock Options

Stock Grants

0

800400

3,2002,8002,4002,0001,6001,200

1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004

YEAR

2004 dollars (in thousands)

Salary Other Income LTIP Bonus Stock Grants Stock Options

Source: Calculations are based on the Executive Compensation Database. 
Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation

40

Figure 2.2. Upper Income Trends in Earned Income for Various Percentiles, 1992 to 2003

0

50

800750700650600550500450400350300250200150100

1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003

Year

2004 Dollars (in thousands)

454035302520151050

2004 Dollars (in thousands)

median p90 p95 p99 p99.5 p99.9 Mean: right axis S&P 500

Source: Calculations are based on data from the Statistics of Income. Measures are in 2004 dollars.

Mean income corresponds to the right axis. The S&P 500 is adjusted to 2004 dollars, but is superimposed on the graph and does not correspond to either axis.

All other measures use the left axis.
Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation

41

Figure 2.3.  ExecuComp Earned Income Distribution Compared to the Top One Percent of Tax Filers

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

- 250,000 500,000 750,000 1,000,000 1,250,000 1,500,000 1,750,000

Earned Income

Density

Executives Top 1% of Tax Filers

0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1

1.2

1.4

1.6

1,500,000 2,500,000 3,500,000 4,500,000 5,500,000 6,500,000 7,500,000

Earned Income

Density (in 10 millionths))

Source:  Calculations are based on data from the Statistics of Income and the Executive Compensation Database.  

Measures are in 2004 dollars.
Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation

42

Figure 2.4. Earned income Trends from the ExecuComp at Various Percentiles

9.008.257.506.756.005.254.503.753.002.251.500.750.00

1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004

2004 Dollars (in millions)

16001400120010008006004002000

S&P 500 Index (2004 dollars)

p70 p80 p90 p95 All Filers 99.992 All Filers 99.9969 S&P 500: right axis

Source: Calculations are based on data from the Statistics of Income and the Executive Compensation Database. Measures are in 2004 dollars.
Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation

43

Figure 3.1. Top Federal Marginal Tax Rates on Earned Income, Capital Gains and Dividends, 1989‐2005

0

70

60

50

40

30

20

10

1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005

Year

percent) (in Rate Tax Marginal

Earned Income (including Medicare) Capital Gains Dividends Corporate Income

Source: Rates are based on IRS tax schedules.
Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation

44

Figure A.1. Gross Income Shares for the Top Decile of Tax Returns

Source:  Calculations are based on data from the Statistics of Income.  Measures are in 2004 dollars.

90-95

95-99

99-99.5

99.5-99.9

99.9-99.99

99.99-100

0

4

8

12

16

20

24

28

32

36

40

44

1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003

Percent

99-99.5

99.5-99.9

99.9-99.99

99.99-100

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003

Year

Percent
Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation

45

Figure A.2. Gross Income Shares for Top Fractiles

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003

Percent

90-95 95-99 99-100 99.5-100

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003

Year

Percent

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

Percent

99-100 99.5-100 99.9-100 99.99-100

Source:  Calculations are based on data from the Statistics of Income.  Measures are in 2004 dollars.
Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation

46

Table 2.1. Overview of Samples from the Statistics of Income and the Executive Compensation Database

(in 2004 Dollars)

SOI ExecuComp

Observationsa 314,020 58,394

Number of Individuals 97,336 10,179

Observations with Earned Income Greater than:

$1,000,000 166,040 17,383

$5,000,000 37,062 2,731

Mean Taxable Income $3,368,452  ‐‐ 

Median Taxable Income $1,629,189  ‐‐ 

Mean Earned Income $2,771,331 $1,928,376

Median Earned Income $946,203 $789,961

Mean Gross Income $4,111,668  ‐‐ 

Median Gross Income $1,722,150  ‐‐ Total Compensation  ‐‐  $2,619,757

Mean Federal Tax Rate 41.20 40.96Mean State Tax Rate 5.75 5.90

Mean After‐Tax Share 53.05 53.33

Source: Estimates are based on Statistics of Income data for years 1992 to 2003 and on the Executive Compensation

Database for years 1992 to 2004.

a. Samples include observations used for the regression analysis and exclude individuals with average salaried income

of less than $376,000.
Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation

47

Table 2.2. 1998 ExecuComp Data Compared to SOI Statistics Reported by Piketty and Saez (1998)

Panel 1

Gross Income 1998 SOI Percentile

1998 ExecuComp

Percentile

$94,682 90.00 1.2

$124,465 95.00 1.9$266,778 99.00 13.2$366,327 99.50 24.3$915,991 99.90 60.1

$4,195,782 99.99 91.6

Source: Columns 1 and 2 are from Piketty and Saez(2003). Column 1 is inflated by the

CPI to 2004 dollars. Column 3 is based on estimates from the Executive Compensation

Database. Incomes exclude capital gains.

Panel 2

Piketty and Saez:

1998 SOI

1998 ExecuComp:Gross Income (Less Capital Gains) by Decile

Fractile

Number of Tax

Units

Average Gross

Income Decile

Number of

Indivduals

Average Gross

Income

0 to 100 130,945,000 $44,896 Observations 6,404 $1,915,454

90 ‐ 95 6,550,000 $108,936 0 ‐ 10 640 $157,69895 ‐ 99 5,240,000 $165,722 10 ‐ 20 640 $270,07590 ‐ 99 11,790,000 $134,175 20 ‐ 30 641 $364,28899 ‐ 99.5 655,000 $309,425 30 ‐ 40 640 $474,06799.5 ‐ 99.9 524,000 $572,494 40 ‐ 50 641 $604,63499.9 ‐ 99.99 117,900 $1,726,755 50 ‐ 60 640 $779,71299.99 ‐ 100 13,100 $11,554,190 60 ‐ 70 640 $1,052,754

70 ‐ 80 641 $1,530,46580 ‐ 90 640 $2,670,21990 – 95 320 $5,037,64295 – 100 321 $17,425,295

Source: Columns 1, 2, and 3 are from Piketty and Saez(2003). Columns 1 and 3 are inflated by the CPI to

2004 dollars. Columns 4 to 6 are based on the Executive Compensation Database and are in 2004 dollars.

Incomes exclude capital gains.

For the ExecuComp, gross income is defined as earned income plus categories for other income and

restricted stock grants. The ExecuComp definition of earned in come is: earned income = salary + bonus

income + long‐term incentive payouts + value of exercised options.

The ExecuComp sample includes all 1998 observations for executives with fiscal years ending in December.
Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation

48

Table 2.3: Mean ExecuComp Incomes, by Sources (’000s)

1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004

Observations 3,311 4,010 4,364 4,773 5,151 5,732 6,404 6,602 6,720 6,888 6,965 6,477 5,206

Total Compensation 1,243 1,308 1,466 1,487 1,758 2,232 2,188 2,675 3,109 2,880 2,366 2,238 2,665

Salary 399 390 391 384 378 375 380 386 393 401 405 420 454Bonus 223 249 293 304 327 356 332 377 403 334 377 434 565LTIP 90 67 74 95 123 124 106 108 122 82 89 119 136Stock Grants 87 89 93 111 127 168 171 170 237 223 229 306 431Other Income 71 105 75 98 106 132 110 132 173 132 147 138 164Options Granted 374 408 541 495 698 1,078 1,090 1,502 1,780 1,707 1,118 819 914

Earned Income 1,158 969 1,011 1,116 1,308 1,610 1,639 1,834 2,344 1,646 1,391 1,735 2,436Options Exercised 446 263 252 330 478 752 817 957 1,419 823 515 755 1,275Source: Calculations are based on the Executive Compensation Database and are in 2004 dollars.

Only executives in firms with December fiscal year are included. For some observations, the value of options granted and exercised is imputed.
Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation

49

Table 2.4. Earned Income Percentiles for the SOI and the ExecuComp

SOI Earned Income (in thousands of 2004 dollars)

Year mean med p90 p95 p99 p99.5 p99.9 p99.992 p99.9969

1992 33,269 20,900 76,275 99,280 179,627 252,266 589,350 2,863,809 5,013,939

1993 32,977 20,698 75,832 98,599 181,092 250,983 557,271 2,886,706 4,870,0081994 33,233 20,979 76,833 99,631 181,774 253,329 542,576 2,808,037 4,510,5041995 33,527 20,803 77,325 101,804 188,423 262,590 576,636 2,837,240 4,652,2081996 33,772 20,695 77,273 102,622 193,052 271,654 604,040 2,848,665 4,865,1231997 34,696 21,316 78,738 104,771 202,220 283,757 648,992 2,875,861 5,068,0091998 35,991 21,873 81,175 108,244 210,786 296,673 693,286 2,920,809 5,328,9121999 36,870 22,023 82,529 110,349 218,939 308,244 726,269 2,957,802 5,695,5832000 37,818 22,263 83,862 112,437 226,429 319,101 801,344 2,952,381 5,738,6962001 37,350 22,541 84,160 113,900 222,052 310,119 725,270 2,905,586 5,373,9662002 36,852 22,505 84,046 112,319 214,802 301,487 679,644 2,922,191 5,202,4652003 36,913 22,488 84,722 112,684 215,097 300,760 678,184 2,860,810 5,205,583

Mean 35,272 21,590 80,231 106,387 202,858 284,247 651,905 2,886,658 5,127,083Mean Growth 304 132 704 1,117 2,956 4,041 7,403 (250) 15,970Percent Change 0.913 0.633 0.923 1.125 1.645 1.602 1.256  ‐0.009 0.319Source: Estimates are based on Statistics of Income data.

ExecuComp Earned Income

p10 p20 p30 p40 med p60 p70 p80 p90 p95

1992 207,009 283,763 349,326 439,497 539,978 706,860 938,751 1,341,815 2,310,679 3,719,214

1993 211,727 287,533 353,200 435,904 544,427 700,845 898,190 1,213,960 1,947,329 2,860,2011994 214,138 290,303 358,999 446,120 543,056 693,875 888,369 1,223,644 1,966,506 2,894,2901995 210,715 285,229 363,484 458,975 573,885 720,567 950,173 1,336,678 2,284,196 3,582,7371996 216,711 298,763 368,478 453,858 570,939 735,497 983,249 1,406,548 2,535,614 4,188,5891997 219,953 299,262 376,623 477,352 592,563 773,893 1,059,252 1,584,712 3,095,420 5,653,7611998 209,089 287,092 366,559 463,558 581,461 752,392 1,032,904 1,543,143 3,097,916 5,674,7521999 220,480 302,739 379,841 477,969 606,829 784,976 1,059,019 1,647,666 3,359,254 6,844,5932000 229,510 303,800 392,166 504,266 635,853 837,258 1,173,769 1,829,075 4,039,662 8,838,3802001 223,089 298,656 374,173 473,944 592,742 770,516 1,039,963 1,567,391 2,897,168 5,333,1452002 230,481 311,170 393,824 495,689 619,516 782,387 1,037,973 1,515,559 2,717,507 4,487,4712003 255,118 338,424 437,113 563,746 716,709 940,156 1,258,781 1,876,118 3,450,388 5,882,1422004 311,667 435,000 574,676 733,147 972,500 1,301,092 1,816,723 2,707,758 4,921,470 8,500,001

Mean 227,668 309,364 391,420 494,156 622,343 807,716 1,087,471 1,599,544 2,971,008 5,266,098Source: Calculations are based on the Executive Compensation Database and are in 2004 dollars.

Only executives in firms with December fiscal year are included.
Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation

50

Table 2.5. Percent Change in Earned Income for Various Percentiles of the SOI and the ExecuComp

SOI Earned Income (in thousands of 2004 dollars)

Year mean med p90 p95 p99 p99.5 p99.9 p99.992 p99.9969

1993  ‐0.88  ‐0.97  ‐0.58  ‐0.69 0.82  ‐0.51  ‐5.44 0.80  ‐2.87

1994 0.78 1.36 1.32 1.05 0.38 0.93  ‐2.64  ‐2.73  ‐7.381995 0.88  ‐0.84 0.64 2.18 3.66 3.66 6.28 1.04 3.141996 0.73  ‐0.52  ‐0.07 0.80 2.46 3.45 4.75 0.40 4.581997 2.74 3.00 1.90 2.09 4.75 4.46 7.44 0.95 4.171998 3.73 2.61 3.10 3.31 4.24 4.55 6.83 1.56 5.151999 2.44 0.69 1.67 1.94 3.87 3.90 4.76 1.27 6.882000 2.57 1.09 1.62 1.89 3.42 3.52 10.34  ‐0.18 0.762001  ‐1.24 1.25 0.36 1.30  ‐1.93  ‐2.81  ‐9.49  ‐1.58  ‐6.362002  ‐1.33  ‐0.16  ‐0.14  ‐1.39  ‐3.27  ‐2.78  ‐6.29 0.57  ‐3.192003 0.17  ‐0.08 0.80 0.32 0.14  ‐0.24  ‐0.21  ‐2.10 0.06

Total Growth 10.95 7.60 11.07 13.50 19.75 19.22 15.07  ‐0.10 3.82Source: Estimates are based on Statistics of Income data.

ExecuComp Earned Income

p10 p20 p30 p40 med p60 p70 p80 p90 p95

1993 2.28 1.33 1.11  ‐0.82 0.82  ‐0.85  ‐4.32  ‐9.53  ‐15.72  ‐23.10

1994 1.14 0.96 1.64 2.34  ‐0.25  ‐0.99  ‐1.09 0.80 0.98 1.191995  ‐1.60  ‐1.75 1.25 2.88 5.68 3.85 6.96 9.24 16.16 23.791996 2.85 4.74 1.37  ‐1.11  ‐0.51 2.07 3.48 5.23 11.01 16.911997 1.50 0.17 2.21 5.18 3.79 5.22 7.73 12.67 22.08 34.981998  ‐4.94  ‐4.07  ‐2.67  ‐2.89  ‐1.87  ‐2.78  ‐2.49  ‐2.62 0.08 0.371999 5.45 5.45 3.62 3.11 4.36 4.33 2.53 6.77 8.44 20.612000 4.10 0.35 3.24 5.50 4.78 6.66 10.84 11.01 20.25 29.132001  ‐2.80  ‐1.69  ‐4.59  ‐6.01  ‐6.78  ‐7.97  ‐11.40  ‐14.31  ‐28.28  ‐39.662002 3.31 4.19 5.25 4.59 4.52 1.54  ‐0.19  ‐3.31  ‐6.20  ‐15.862003 10.69 8.76 10.99 13.73 15.69 20.17 21.27 23.79 26.97 31.082004 22.17 28.54 31.47 30.05 35.69 38.39 44.32 44.33 42.64 44.51

Total Growth 50.56 53.30 64.51 66.82 80.10 84.07 93.53 101.80 112.99 128.54Source: Calculations are based on the Executive Compensation Database and are in 2004 dollars.

Only executives in firms with December fiscal years are included.
Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation

51

Table 3.1. Statutory Federal Marginal Income Tax Rates for Highest‐Income Taxpayers

Top Marginal Tax

Rate (percent) Income Threshold

Next Marginal

Rate

Income

Threshold

1992 31.0 $ 86,500 28.0

1993 39.6 250,000 36.0 $ 140,000

1994 42.5 250,000 38.9 140,000

1995 42.5 256,500 38.9 143,600

1996 42.5 263,750 38.9 147,700

1997 42.5 271,050 38.9 151,750

1998 42.5 278,450 38.9 155,950

1999 42.5 283,150 38.9 158,550

2000 42.5 288,350 38.9 161,450

2001 42.0 297,350 38.4 166,500

2002 41.5 307,050 37.9 171,950

2003 37.9 311,950 35.9 174,700

2004 37.9 319,100 35.9 178,600

Source: Internal Revenue Service.
Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation

52

Source: Estimates are based on the Executive Compensation Database. Only those with permanent incomes greater than $376,000

are included in the regressions. Sample includes executives who appear in at least 4 consecutive years.

Standard errors are in parentheses. All specifications include individual fixed‐effects.

Table 4.1

ExecuComp Earned Income Elasticities

Long‐Term Executives

1992 to 2004 1992 to 1995 2000 to 2004 1992 to 2004 1992 to 1995 2000 to 2004

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

After‐Tax Share Current 0.336 0.481 1.09 1.092 0.821  ‐0.005

(0.068) (0.140) (0.353) (0.108) (0.319) (0.340)

After‐Tax Share Future       ‐1.458  ‐0.633  ‐0.691

(0.184) (0.688) (0.302)

Year 0.121 0.14 0.108 0.119 0.129 0.126

(0.001) (0.010) (0.010) (0.002) (0.013) (0.011)

Million–Dollar Rule       ‐3.341 14.684  ‐0.559

(0.865) (4.225) (1.233)

Firm Market Value 0.191 0.193 0.239

(0.003) (0.011) (0.010)

Earnings/Asset 1.371 1.764 1.399

(0.038) (0.135) (0.083)

Constant  ‐236.733  ‐274.942  ‐213.294  ‐231.023  ‐254.482  ‐244.646

(2.428) (21.399) (18.082) (3.379) (25.494) (21.175)

Observations 46,754 7,752 13,517 46,754 7,752 13,517

Number of executives 6,234 1,938 2,707 6,234 1,938 2,707

R‐squared 0.20 0.08 0.09 0.28 0.14 0.17
Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation

53

Table 4.2

Attrition in the ExecuComp

Years in

Sample

Number of

Executives Share

1 529 0.05

2 1,079 0.10

3 2,151 0.19

4 1,595 0.14

5 1,223 0.11

6 935 0.08

7 919 0.08

8 731 0.07

9 535 0.05

10 395 0.04

11 295 0.03

12 291 0.03

13 534 0.05

Total 11,212 1.00

Source: Estimates are based on the Executive

Compensation Database. Only those with

permanent incomes greater than $376,000 are

included in the regressions.
Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation

54

Table 4.3

ExecuComp Earned‐Income Elasticities

All Executives

1992 to 2004 1992 to 1995 2000 to 2004 1992 to 2004 1992 to 1995 2000 to 2004

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

After‐Tax Share Current 0.574 1.001 2.404 1.330 1.217 0.968

(0.062) (0.121) (0.269) (0.096) (0.281) (0.261)

After‐Tax Share Future       ‐1.617  ‐0.640  ‐1.481

(0.168) (0.613) (0.233)

Year 0.126 0.184 0.083 0.125 0.168 0.133

(0.001) (0.009) (0.008) (0.002) (0.011) (0.009)

Million Dollar       ‐3.469 15.906  ‐2.558

(0.864) (3.866) (1.127)

Firm Market Value 0.183 0.153 0.207

(0.003) (0.009) (0.007)

Earnings/Assets 1.252 1.469 1.227

(0.033) (0.104) (0.052)

Constant  ‐247.167  ‐364.614  ‐168.261  ‐242.913  ‐333.108  ‐258.048

(2.388) (18.608) (14.327) (3.206) (22.338) (17.196)

Observations 58,394 11,677 26,065 58,394 11,677 26,065

Number of Executives 10,179 3,743 7,394 10,179 3,743 7,394

R‐squared 0.19 0.09 0.08 0.26 0.14 0.16

Source: Estimates are based on the Executive Compensation Database. Only those with permanent incomes greater than $376,000 are

included in the regressions.

Standard errors are in parentheses. All specifications include individual fixed‐effects.
Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation

55

Source: Estimates are based on the Statistics of Income.

Only those with permanent incomes greater than $376,000 are included in the regressions. Weights are used to adjust for non‐random selection into the sample. Standard errors

are in parentheses. All specifications include individual fixed‐effects.

Table 4.4

Statistics of Income

Earned‐Income Elasticities

1992 to 2003 1992 to 1995 2000 to 2003 1992 to 2003 1992 to 1995 2000 to 2003

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

After‐Tax Share Current 3.224 3.308 3.289  ‐0.829  ‐0.233  ‐5.603

(0.002) (0.003) (0.003) (0.051) (0.318) (0.300)

After‐Tax Share Future 2.855  ‐0.217 6.035

(0.057) (0.324) (0.198)

Year 0.016 0.184  ‐0.139  ‐0.068  ‐0.137  ‐0.165

(0.001) (0.002) (0.002) (0.001) (0.015) (0.008)

Million–Dollar Rule       ‐2.75  ‐17.305  ‐0.817

(0.075) (1.576) (0.063)

S&P 500 0.755 3.914 1.787

(0.015) (0.115) (0.064)

PE Ratio_Market       ‐0.007  ‐0.445  ‐0.040

(0.001) (0.018) (0.002)

Observations 314,020 68,300 128,333 314,020 68,300 128,333

Tax Units 97,366 30,609 63,205 97,366 30,609 63,205

R‐squared 0.87 0.96 0.91 0.88 0.96 0.91
Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation

56

Source: Estimates are based on the Executive Compensation Database. Only those with permanent incomes greater than $376

thousand are included in the regressions. Standard errors are in parentheses. All specifications include individual fixed‐effects.

Table 4.5

ExecuComp Total Compensation Elasticities

Long‐Term Executives

1992 to 2004 1992 to 1995 2000 to 2004 1992 to 2004 1992 to 1995 2000 to 2004

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

After‐Tax Share, Current ‐0.949  ‐0.243  ‐0.323 0.100  ‐0.668  ‐0.896

(0.060) (0.121) (0.298) (0.100) (0.285) (0.294)

After‐Tax Share, Future      ‐2.118 1.093  ‐0.238

(0.168) (0.614) (0.261)

Million‐Dollar Rule      ‐3.004 0.430  ‐0.318

(0.800) (3.773) (1.068)

Firm Market Value 0.101 0.047 0.166

(0.003) (0.010) (0.009)

Earnings/Assets 0.548 0.780 0.180

(0.035) (0.121) (0.072)

Year 0.101 0.099 0.042 0.109 0.082 0.044

(0.001) (0.009) (0.008) (0.002) (0.012) (0.010)

Constant ‐190.177  ‐188.795  ‐76.121  ‐203.912  ‐157.967  ‐78.021

(2.164) (18.513) (15.240) (3.112) (22.768) (18.320)

Observations 46,852 7,752 13,554 46,852 7,752 13,554

Number of Executives 6,237 1,938 2,711 6,237 1,938 2,711

R‐squared 0.18 0.11 0.01 0.21 0.12 0.04
Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation

57

Table 4.6

Statistics of Income

Taxable‐Income Elasticities

1992 to 2003 1992 to 1995 2000 to 2003 1992 to 2003 1992 to 1995 2000 to 2003

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

After‐Tax Share, Current 3.271 3.321 3.301  ‐1.039 0.224  ‐5.344

(0.002) (0.004) (0.004) 0.056 (0.443) (0.383)

After‐Tax Share, Future 3.227  ‐0.072 5.981

0.063 (0.452) (0.253)

Year 0.034 0.206  ‐0.124  ‐0.051  ‐0.074  ‐0.133

(0.001) (0.003) (0.002) 0.001 (0.021) (0.010)

Million‐Dollar Rule       ‐2.018  ‐15.555  ‐0.737

0.082 (2.199) (0.081)

S&P 500 0.679 3.305 1.651

0.017 (0.161) (0.082)

PE Ratio_Market       ‐0.005  ‐0.376  ‐0.035

0.001 (0.025) (0.002)

299,124 64,780 122,191 299,124 64,780 122,191

Observations 95,066 29,508 61,433 95,066 29,508 61,433

Tax units 0.86 0.93 0.87 0.87 0.93 0.87

R‐squared

Source: Estimates are based on the Statistics of Income. Only those with permanent incomes greater than $376

thousand are included in the regressions. Weights are used to adjust for non‐random selection into the sample.

Standard errors are in parentheses. All specifications include individual fixed‐ effects.
Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation

58

Table 4.7

Statistics of Income

Gross Income Elasticities

1992 to 2003 1992 to 1995 2000 to 2003 1992 to 2003 1992 to 1995 2000 to 2003

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

After‐Tax Share, Current 3.316 3.367 3.353  ‐0.754 0.787  ‐5.884

(0.002) (0.003) (0.003) (0.042) (0.350) (0.278)

After‐Tax Share, Future 3.17  ‐0.984 6.234

(0.047) (0.358) (0.184)

Year 0.041 0.22  ‐0.11  ‐0.035  ‐0.047  ‐0.13

(0.0005) (0.002) (0.002) (0.001) (0.016) (0.008)

Million‐Dollar Rule       ‐1.628  ‐19.327  ‐0.565

(0.062) (1.738) (0.059)

S&P 500 0.562 3.797 1.869

(0.013) (0.127) (0.060)

PE Ratio_Market       ‐0.004  ‐0.448  ‐0.04

(0.001) (0.020) (0.001)

Observations 300,747 65,478 123,826 300,747 65,478 123,826

Tax units 0.92 0.95 0.93 0.93 0.96 0.93

R‐squared

Source: Estimates are based on the Statistics of Income. Only those with permanent incomes greater than $376

thousand are included in the regressions. Weights are used to adjust for non‐random selection into the sample.

Standard errors are in parentheses. All specifications include individual fixed‐effects.
Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation

59

Table 4.8

Earned‐Income Elasticities

by Income Level

Panel A: Long‐Term Executives

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9)

Mean Income Floor $376,000 $650,000 $1,000,000

All 1992‐1995 2000‐2004 All 1992‐1995 2000‐2004 All 1992‐1995 2000‐2004

After‐Tax Share, Current 1.092 0.821  ‐0.005 1.347 1.047 0.019 1.714 1.481 0.602

(0.108) (0.319) (0.340) (0.133) (0.429) (0.431) (0.167) (0.542) (0.541)

After‐Tax Share, Future   ‐1.458  ‐0.633  ‐0.691  ‐1.898  ‐0.398  ‐0.977  ‐2.541  ‐0.747  ‐1.312

(0.184) (0.688) (0.302) (0.231) (0.429) (0.379) (0.293) (1.150) (0.474)

Observations 46,754 7,752 13,517 35,376 5,396 10,576 25,279 3,616 7,915

Number of Executives 6,234 1,938 2,707 4,587 1,349 2,117 3,219 904 1,586

R‐squared 0.20 0.08 0.09 0.30 0.14 0.18 0.30 0.12 0.18

Panel B: All Executives

Mean Income Floor $376,000 $650,000 $1,000,000

All 1992‐1995 2000‐2004 All 1992‐1995 2000‐2004 All 1992‐1995 2000‐2004

After‐Tax Share, Current 1.330 1.217 0.968 1.617 1.558 1.213 2.077 2.009 1.755

(0.096) (0.281) (0.261) (0.121) (0.391) (0.346) (0.156) (0.509) (0.443)

After‐Tax Share, Future   ‐1.617  ‐0.640  ‐1.480  ‐2.117  ‐0.824  ‐1.807  ‐2.893  ‐1.361  ‐2.229

(0.168) (0.613) (0.233) (0.217) (0.851) (0.307) (0.279) (1. 076) (0.443)

Observations 58,394 11,677 26,065 42,342 7,627 18,959 29,461 4,886 13,521

Number of Executives 10,179 3,743 7,394 6,904 2,346 5,236 4,607 1,455 3,676

R‐squared 0.26 0.14 0.16 0.28 0.13 0.17 0.29 0.11 0.18

Source: Estimates are based on the Executive Compensation Database.

Standard errors are in parentheses. All specifications include individual fixed‐effects.
Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation

60

Table 4.9

Income Elasticities by Income Type

Panel A: Long‐Term Executives

Earned Income Wages and Salary Income Long‐Term Incentive Payouts

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9)

All 1992‐1995 2000‐2004 All 1992‐1995 2000‐2004 All 1992‐1995 2000‐2004

After‐Tax Share, Current 1.092 0.821  ‐0.005 0.235  ‐0.444  ‐0.392  ‐0.698 1.093 1.645

(0.108) (0.319) (0.340) (0.077) (0.123) (0.186) (0.277) (0.782) (0.656)

After‐Tax Share, Future  ‐1.458  ‐0.633  ‐0.691  ‐0.219 0.267 0.375 0.533  ‐0.730  ‐0.194

(0.184) (0.688) (0.302) (0.131) (0.266) (0.165) (0.412) (1.056) (0.629)

Observations 46,754 7,752 13,517 46,871 7,752 13,560 38,921 6,720 11,480

Number of Executives 6,234 1,938 2,707 6,237 1,938 2,712 4,949 1,680 2,296

R‐squared 0.20 0.08 0.09 0.11 0.16 0.06 0.05 0.01 0.05

Panel B: All Executives

Earned Income Wages and Salary Income Long‐Term Incentive Payouts

(1) (2) (3) (1) (2) (3) (1) (2) (3)

All 1992‐1995 2000‐2004 All 1992‐1995 2000‐2004 All 1992‐1995 2000‐2004

After‐Tax Share, Current 1.330 1.217 0.968 0.354  ‐0.123  ‐0.001  ‐0.308 2.335 2.100

(0.096) (0.281) (0.261) (0.067) (0.131) (0.143) (0.233) (0.650) (0.449)

After‐Tax Share, Future  ‐1.617  ‐0.640  ‐1.48  ‐0.226 0.453  ‐0.118  ‐0.285  ‐1.521  ‐0.660

(0.168) (0.613) (0.233) 0.116 (0.286) (0.128) (0.345) (0.861) (0.435)

Observations 58,394 11,677 26,065 58,550 11,695 26,161 49,975 10,181 22,260

Number of Executives 10,179 3,743 7,394 10,195 3,753 7,415 8,715 3,275 6,343

R‐squared 0.26 0.14 0.16 0.11 0.1 0.06 0.045 0.07 0.045

Source: Estimates are based on the Executive Compensation Database. Only those with permanent incomes greater than $376,000 are included in

the regressions. Standard errors are in parentheses. All specifications include individual fixed‐effects.
Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation

61

Table 4.10 

Income Elasticities 

Basic Sample (In>1 years) 

1992-2004 

Long-Term Executives (In >=4 years) 

ExecuComp, 1992-2004

Data Time Period Income Level Income Source 

(1) 

ExecuComp 

(2) 

SOI 

(3) 

All Years 

(4) 

OBRA 93 

(1992-1995) 

(5) 

EGGTRA 

(2000-2004) 

(6) 

High Income 

(>$650K) 

(7) 

Very High 

Income 

(>$1million) 

(8) 

Total 

Compensation 

(9) 

Wage & 

Salary 

(10) 

Long-Term 

Incentive 

Payouts 

After-Tax Share, 

Current 

1.330 

(0.096) 

-0.829 

(0.051) 

1.092 

(0.108) 

0.821 

(0.319) 

-0.005 

(0.340) 

1.347 

(0.133) 

1.714 

(0.167) 

0.129 

(0.064) 

0.088 

(0.071) 

-0.698 

(0.277) 

After-Tax Share, 

Future 

-1.617 

(0.125) 

2.855 

(0.057) 

-1.458 

(0.184) 

-0.633 

(0.688) 

-0.691 

(0.302) 

-1.898 

(0.231) 

-2.541 

(0.293) 

-2.195 

(0.177) 

0.124 

(0.122) 

0.533 

(0.412) 

Observations 58,394 314,020 46,754 7,752 13,157 35,376 25,279 46,754 38,799 38,982 

Execs/Tax Units 10,179 97,336 6,234 1,938 2,707 4,587 3,219 6,234 4,941 4,949 

Source: Estimates are based on the Executive Compensation Database. Standard errors are in parentheses. All specifications include individual fixed‐effects.
Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation

62

Table 5.1

Composition of Executive Compensation

Share Regressions

Stock Options Restricted Stock

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8)

All Executives Long‐Term Executives All Executives Long‐Term Executives

After‐Tax Share

Earned Income  ‐0.45  ‐0.38  ‐0.49  ‐0.44 0.11 0.08 0.11 0.09

(0.02) (0.21) (0.02) (0.02) (0.01) (0.01) (0.01) (0.01)

Capital Gains 0.18 0.18 0.20 0.20 0.003  ‐0.04  ‐0.02  ‐0.06

(0.04) (0.04) (0.04) (0.04) (0.02) (0.02) (0.02) (0.02)

Corporate  ‐0.18  ‐0.22  ‐0.34  ‐0.38  ‐0.05 0.05  ‐0.02 0.07

(0.30) (0.30) (0.29) (0.30) (0.15) (0.16) (0.15) (0.16)

Firm Market Value 0.01 0.02 0.01 0.02 0.01 0.00  ‐0.01 0.00

(0.001) (0.001) (0.001) (0.002) (0.001) (0.00) (0.01) (0.00)

Earnings/Assets  ‐0.03  ‐0.03  ‐0.01  ‐0.02 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.02

(0.01) (0.02) (0.013) (0.02) (0.01) (0.01) (0.01) (0.01)

Volatility 0.10 0.01   ‐0.02  ‐0.02

(0.01) (0.005) (0.01) (0.01)

Director Fee   ‐0.01  ‐0.01 0.00 0.00

(0.003) (0.003) (0.00) (0.000

Year  ‐0.00 0.00 0.00 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

(0.00) (0.001) (0.00) (0.001) (0.00) (0.00) (0.00) (0.00)

Constant 2.31  ‐8.34  ‐.139  ‐10.06  ‐7.01  ‐6.56  ‐7.28  ‐7.19

(1.39) (1.54) (1.43) (1.60) (0.71) (0.80) (0.75) 0.85

Observations 49,951 43,796 38,909 34,295 49,951 43,796 38,909 34,295

Number of Executives 8,712 8,507 4,949 4,913 8,712 8,507 4,949 4,913

R‐squared 0.01 0.03 0.02 0.04 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01

Source: Estimates are based on the Executive Compensation Database. Only those with permanent incomes greater than $376

thousand are included in the regressions. Standard errors are in parentheses. All specifications include individual fixed‐effects.
Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation

63

Table A.1. Income Shares for Fractiles in the Top Decile

Income Shares: Gross Income (Excluding Capital Gains)

Year 90‐100 95‐100 99‐100 99.5‐100 99.9‐100 99.99‐100 90‐95 95‐99 99‐99.5 99.5‐99.9 99.9‐99.99 99.99‐100

1992 39.02 27.43 13.35 10.00 5.14 1.98 11.58 14.08 3.35 4.86 3.16 1.97

1993 38.72 27.02 12.72 9.37 4.67 1.72 11.70 14.30 3.35 4.70 2.94 1.721994 38.76 27.04 12.71 9.33 4.63 1.70 11.72 14.33 3.38 4.70 2.93 1.701995 39.54 27.76 13.25 9.80 4.93 1.82 11.78 14.51 3.45 4.87 3.11 1.821996 40.23 28.53 13.89 10.34 5.30 2.01 11.70 14.64 3.55 5.04 3.28 2.011997 40.80 29.18 14.49 10.92 5.72 2.18 11.62 14.69 3.57 5.20 3.54 2.181998 41.24 29.67 14.95 11.34 6.05 2.34 11.56 14.73 3.61 5.29 3.71 2.341999 41.93 30.40 15.61 11.96 6.55 2.62 11.53 14.79 3.64 5.41 3.93 2.622000 42.85 31.39 16.50 12.80 7.18 2.94 11.46 14.89 3.69 5.62 4.24 2.942001 41.63 29.96 15.13 11.51 6.16 2.41 11.67 14.83 3.62 5.35 3.75 2.412002 41.02 29.32 14.50 10.93 5.72 2.20 11.70 14.82 3.57 5.20 3.52 2.202003 41.10 29.43 14.68 11.10 5.89 2.33 11.67 14.75 3.58 5.21 3.56 2.32

Income Shares: Taxable Income (Excluding Capital Gains)

Year 90‐100 95‐100 99‐100 99.5‐100 99.9‐100 99.99‐100 90‐95 95‐99 99‐99.5 99.5‐99.9 99.9‐99.99 99.99‐100

1992 48.56 35.04 18.01 13.76 7.29 2.85 13.52 17.03 4.25 6.48 4.44 2.84

1993 48.18 34.39 16.95 12.70 6.48 2.41 13.79 17.44 4.26 6.22 4.07 2.401994 47.90 34.22 16.80 12.53 6.36 2.35 13.69 17.42 4.26 6.17 4.02 2.341995 48.52 34.90 17.41 13.09 6.71 2.50 13.62 17.49 4.32 6.38 4.22 2.491996 48.98 35.55 18.04 13.62 7.10 2.70 13.42 17.52 4.42 6.53 4.40 2.691997 49.32 36.08 18.65 14.25 7.57 2.88 13.24 17.43 4.40 6.69 4.68 2.881998 49.43 36.36 19.06 14.65 7.93 3.07 13.07 17.31 4.41 6.72 4.86 3.061999 50.04 37.06 19.76 15.33 8.51 3.40 12.98 17.30 4.43 6.83 5.10 3.402000 50.82 37.98 20.70 16.25 9.23 3.78 12.84 17.28 4.45 7.02 5.45 3.782001 49.61 36.47 19.11 14.72 7.98 3.11 13.14 17.36 4.39 6.74 4.87 3.112002 49.46 36.17 18.64 14.23 7.58 2.90 13.29 17.53 4.40 6.66 4.67 2.902003 49.50 36.25 18.83 14.42 7.76 3.05 13.25 17.42 4.41 6.66 4.71 3.05
Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation

64

(continued)

Income Shares: Earned Income

Year 90‐100 95‐100 99‐100 99.5‐100 99.9‐100 99.99‐100 90‐95 95‐99 99‐99.5 99.5‐99.9 99.9‐99.99 99.99‐100

1992 39.19 26.21 11.29 8.15 3.88 1.39 12.98 14.93 3.14 4.27 2.49 1.39

1993 38.85 25.84 10.79 7.61 3.43 1.13 13.01 15.05 3.17 4.18 2.31 1.121994 38.54 25.49 10.45 7.28 3.15 0.99 13.06 15.03 3.17 4.13 2.16 0.981995 39.48 26.36 11.07 7.80 3.50 1.16 13.11 15.30 3.27 4.30 2.34 1.161996 40.11 27.06 11.63 8.29 3.82 1.34 13.04 15.43 3.34 4.47 2.48 1.341997 40.62 27.65 12.22 8.83 4.28 1.59 12.97 15.43 3.39 4.55 2.69 1.581998 41.12 28.26 12.82 9.41 4.76 1.89 12.86 15.44 3.41 4.65 2.86 1.891999 41.82 29.00 13.54 10.09 5.36 2.29 12.81 15.46 3.45 4.74 3.07 2.282000 42.77 30.06 14.56 11.07 6.20 2.74 12.71 15.50 3.49 4.87 3.46 2.732001 41.66 28.69 13.01 9.55 4.90 1.97 12.97 15.67 3.46 4.65 2.92 1.972002 40.90 27.84 12.17 8.77 4.25 1.60 13.06 15.67 3.40 4.52 2.65 1.602003 40.88 27.79 12.14 8.76 4.26 1.62 13.09 15.64 3.39 4.49 2.64 1.61

Source: Calculations are based on the Statistics of Income.
Trends in High Incomes and Behavioral Responses to Taxation

65

Table A.2. Changes in Gross Income for Top Fractiles for Selected Time Periods

Panel 1. Average Annual Percent Change in Gross Income for Fractiles in the Top Decile

Year 0‐100 90‐100 95‐100 99‐100 99.5‐100 99.9‐100 99.99‐100

1992‐1994  ‐0.3  ‐0.5  ‐0.7  ‐1.9  ‐2.5  ‐3.5  ‐4.9

1994‐2000 2.5 4.3 5.2 7.5 8.7 11.8 14.81998‐2000 1.8 3.2 3.8 5.4 6.3 8.4 10.92000‐2003  ‐0.8  ‐1.8  ‐2.3  ‐3.5  ‐4.0  ‐5.2  ‐5.91992‐2003 1.2 1.7 1.9 2.2 2.3 2.7 3.0

Source: Calculations are based on the Statistics of Income and changes are measured in constant dollars.

* Changes are measured on a per capita basis, to adjust for increase in the number of returns over time.

Panel 2. Total Percent Change in Gross Income for Fractiles in the Top Decile

Year 0‐100 90‐100 95‐100 99‐100 99.5‐100 99.9‐100 99.99‐100 90‐95 95‐99 99‐99.5 99.5‐99.9 99.9‐99.99 99.99‐100

1992‐1994  ‐0.8  ‐1.4  ‐2.2  ‐5.6  ‐7.4  ‐10.6  ‐14.8 0.4 0.9 0.0  ‐4.0  ‐8.1  ‐14.8

1994‐2000 17.4 29.8 36.3 52.4 61.2 82.3 103.4 14.8 22.0 28.3 40.3 70.1 103.41998‐2000 5.4 9.5 11.5 16.3 19.0 25.2 32.7 7.8 10.5 12.6 17.2 28.4 42.12000‐2003  ‐3.3  ‐7.2  ‐9.3  ‐13.9  ‐16.2  ‐20.7  ‐23.5   ‐1.6  ‐4.2  ‐6.2  ‐10.4  ‐18.7  ‐23.51992‐2003 14.1 20.8 23.3 26.7 28.0 32.6 36.4 15.1 20.1 22.7 23.1 30.3 36.4

Source: Calculations are based on the Statistics of Income and changes are measured in constant dollars.

* Changes are measured on a per capita basis, to adjust for increase in the number of returns over time.

Panel 3. Percent Change in Gross Income Shares for Top Fractiles

Panel 4. Share of the Total Increase in

Gross Income from 1992 to 2003 ($1.2

trillion) Accruing to Top Fractiles

90‐95 95‐99 99‐99.5 99.5‐99.9 99.9‐99.99 99.99‐100 Fractile Share

1992‐1994 1.2 1.8 0.8  ‐3.3  ‐7.3  ‐14.1 top 10 49.21

1994‐2000  ‐2.2 3.9 9.2 19.5 44.9 73.4 top 5 37.191998‐2000  ‐0.9 1.1 2.4 6.2 14.3 25.9 top 1 19.862000‐2003 1.8  ‐1.0  ‐3.0  ‐7.3  ‐16.0  ‐20.9 top 0.5 15.391992‐2003 0.8 4.7 6.8 7.1 12.8 17.7 top 0.1 8.83Source: Calculations are based on the Statistics of Income and changes are measured

in constant dollars.

* Changes are measured on a per capita basis, to adjust for increase in the number of

returns over time.

Source: Calculations are based on the

Statistics of Income.