Immigration and the Top 1 Percent

Using administrative data on the universe of U.K. taxpayers, we study the contribution of migrants to the rise in U.K. top incomes. We show that migrants are over-represented at the top of the income distribution, with migrants twice as prevalent in the top 0.01% as anywhere in the bottom 97% of taxpayers. These high incomes are predominantly from labor, rather than capital, and migrants are concentrated in only a handful of industries, predominantly finance. All of the observed growth in the U.K. top 1% income share over the past 20 years has accrued to migrants.

Advani, Arun, Felix Koenig, Lorenzo Pessina and Andy Summers (2025), Immigration and the Top 1 Percent, The Review of Economics and Statistics 107(4) , 1123-1135