In Thomas Piketty's bestseller, "Capital in the Twenty-First Century", Japan appears as another rich country in which wealth is becoming ever more concentrated. It is certainly another rich country in which the book is selling well. Mr Piketty visited Tokyo this month, to a rapturous reception. Yet Japan may be the place where his thesis holds up least well. The bursting of Japan's asset bubble in 1991 is one reason why the rich have amassed less than in America or many European countries. The share of wealth held by the richest tenth of Japanese is lower than in famously egalitarian spots such as Norway and Sweden. In fact, it is the second-lowest of the 46 economies surveyed by Credit Suisse Research Institute, above only Belgium. The share of income going to the wealthiest has been fairly stable too. Levels of executive pay are far less egregious than in America. According to an analysis prepared for the Wall Street Journal by Mr Piketty's collaborators, the share of national income taken by the top 1% in Japan, excluding capital gains, fell from a high of 9.5% in 2008 to 9% in 2012.
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机译：在托马斯·皮凯蒂（Thomas Piketty）的畅销书“二十一世纪的首都”中，日本似乎是另一个富裕国家，财富日益集中。当然，这是另一个畅销书籍的富裕国家。皮凯蒂先生本月访问了东京，受到热烈欢迎。然而，日本也许是他的论点最不受欢迎的地方。 1991年日本资产泡沫的破裂是富人的积累少于美国或许多欧洲国家的原因之一。日本最富有的十分之一拥有的财富份额低于挪威和瑞典等著名的平均主义国家。实际上，在瑞士信贷研究所（Credit Suisse Research Institute）调查的46个经济体中，瑞士排名第二低，仅次于比利时。流向最富裕阶层的收入份额也相当稳定。高管薪酬水平远不及美国。皮凯蒂（Piketty）的合作者为《华尔街日报》（Wall Street Journal）进行的分析显示，日本前1％的国民收入所占份额（不包括资本收益）从2008年的9.5％降至2012年的9％。
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