What are the impacts of economic crises on the distribution of income and wealth? The available empirical research suggests that the distributional effects of crises are contextual and that a ‘hard and fast’ pattern might not exist. Crises differ in their root causes and the effects on the distribution may vary across countries, across inequality concepts (market or disposable income, wealth or consumption), and across inequality measures (Gini, top shares, gaps between socio-demographic groups, etc.). Considering a sample of 25 countries and 35 banking crises over the last century and using an array of economic inequality indexes and several definitions of macroeconomic crises, Atkinson and Morelli do not find a clear pattern in pre- and post-crisis developments of inequality.¹ However, they highlight that severe financial crises coupled with economic recessions are more likely to be followed by increasing levels of overall income inequality. Nevertheless, different parts of the distributions may react differently to the onset of a crisis. Focusing just on the top of the income distribution and using tax data, Morelli shows that the richest segments of the income distribution in the United States generally lost ground in relative terms following the three most severe financial crises since 1900.² The documented changes, however, are found to be temporary in nature as top income shares of the richest groups tend to bounce back to the pre-crisis trend within 5 years from the onset of the shock. Using household survey data in the United States from the Current Population Survey (CPS), Almeida finds that ‘income losses experienced by richer households were relatively modest and transitory, while those experienced by poorer households were not only strong but also highly persistent’.³

中文翻译：

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两国的故事：德国和意大利危机对收入和财富的漫长阴影

经济危机对收入和财富分配有何影响？现有的经验研究表明，危机的分布效应是与环境相关的，并且可能不存在“强而有力”的模式。危机的根源各不相同，并且对分配的影响因国家，不平等概念（市场或可支配收入，财富或消费）和不平等措施（基尼，最高份额，社会人口群体之间的差距等）而异。 ）。考虑到上个世纪25个国家和35个银行业危机的样本，并使用一系列经济不平等指数和宏观经济危机的几种定义，Atkinson和Morelli在危机之前和之后的不平等发展中没有找到明确的模式。^1个但是，他们强调，严重的金融危机加上经济衰退更可能导致总体收入不平等加剧。但是，分布的不同部分对于危机的发生可能有不同的反应。莫雷利（Morelli）仅关注收入分配的顶部并使用税收数据，显示出自1900年以来的三场最严重的金融危机以来，美国收入分配中最富裕的部分通常相对而言有所下降^。2然而，已记录在案的变化本质上是暂时的，因为最富有的群体的最高收入份额往往在冲击发生后的5年内反弹回危机前的趋势。阿尔梅达利用当前人口调查（CPS）在美国的家庭调查数据发现，“较富裕家庭遭受的收入损失相对较小且短暂，而较贫穷家庭遭受的收入损失不仅强劲而且高度持久”。³