Parametric representation of the top of income distributions: Options, historical evidence, and model selection

Abstract

Empirical distributions of top incomes suffer from statistical problems affecting the measurement of inequality and its trend. Researchers and practitioners have been increasingly noting parametric regularities across income distributions and turning to parametric functions to approximate or supplement the observed distributions, both for descriptive purposes and for correcting distributional statistics derived from data. The proliferation of distinct branches of modeling literature has highlighted the need to compare the alternative modeling options, and develop systematic tools to discriminate between them. This paper reviews the state of methodological and empirical knowledge regarding the adoptable parametric functions, and lists references and statistical programs allowing practitioners to apply these models to microdata in household surveys and administrative registers, or grouped-records data from national accounts statistics. Implications for modeling the distributions of other economic outcomes including consumption and wealth, and incomes below the topmost tail, are drawn. For incomes, a handful of distribution functions hold promise for modeling the top tails based on theoretical and empirical properties—namely the extreme values distributions, the generalized Pareto, the Singh–Maddala and the generalized beta type 2. Understanding these functions in relation to other commonly invoked alternatives is a contribution of this review. © 2021 The Authors. Journal of Economic Surveys published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd