A New State-Level Panel of Annual Inequality Measures Over The Period 1916-2005

Abstract

This paper introduces a new panel of annual state-level income inequalitymeasures over the ninety year period 1916-2005. Among many of the states inequalityfollowed a U-shaped pattern over the past century, peaking both before the GreatDepression and again at the time of the new millennium. The new panel revealssignificant state-level variations, both before the year 1945, and regionally. WhileNortheastern states are strongly correlated with aggregate U.S. trends, we find manyof the Western states have little overall correlation over the past century. The availabilityof this new panel may prove useful to empirical researchers interested in allaspects of income inequality, particularly given the panel’s unusually large numberof both time-series and cross-sectional observations.