Personal Income and Hierarchical Power

This article examines the relation between personal income and hierarchical power. In the context of a firm hierarchy, I define hierarchical power as the number of subordinates under an individual's control. Using the available case-study evidence, I find that relative income within firms scales strongly with hierarchical power. I also find that hierarchical power affects income more strongly than any other factor for which data is available. I conclude that this is preliminary evidence for a hierarchical-power theory of personal income distribution. Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00213624.2019.1657746 .