Join the network
Blog
From the Editor's Desk (January 2012)
Tony Addison January saw the snow arrive in Helsinki. As I look out across the harbour, the scene is one of various shades of white and grey. The...
461 UNU-WIDER articles, publications, projects, experts...
Filter by...
Reset all
Blog
From the Editor's Desk (February 2012)
Tony Addison It’s now February, and Helsinki remains deep in snow. We had an extended blizzard last weekend, with temperatures hovering around minus...
Research Brief
A colonial legacy?
– Income inequality in former British African colonies
The presence of European colonial powers in Africa has left a long-lasting legacy that has severely impacted their development trajectories. But what are the lingering effects of colonization on economic performance, in particular with regard to...
Blog
Poverty and Inclusive Growth in the Light of the Quintile Income Statistic
9 December 2013 S. Subramanian 1 Introduction It appears that the World Bank is planning to maintain and disseminate systematic information on a...
Blog
What Does it Mean to be in the Middle?: Mobility and Vulnerability in Latin America and the Caribbean
Luis-Felipe Lopez-Calva [1] The concept of social class and specifically middle class, has been widely discussed in sociology and other social...
Blog
Millennium Development Goals in Turbulent Times: Emerging Challenges for Post-2015 MDGsRolph van der Hoeven and Peter van Bergeijk One of the most important trends that emerged since the launch of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)...
Working Paper
Measuring the Labour Income Share of Developing Countries
– Learning from Social Accounting Matrices
This paper is the first to address the challenges of measuring the labour income share of developing countries. The poor availability and reliability of national accounts data, and the fact that self-employed people, whose labour income is hard to...
Working Paper
Reversal of the Kuznets Curve
– Study on the Inequality–Development Relation Using Top Income Shares Data
This paper uses recently published top 1% income share series in studying the inequality– development association. The top income shares data are of high quality and cover about a century for some countries and thus provide an interesting opportunity...
Working Paper
Changing Income Inequality and Structural Transformation
– The Case of Botswana 1921-2010
In Sub-Saharan Africa we find some of the highest levels of income inequality in the world. Nevertheless, we generally know very little about the historical development of inequality. In this paper we look at how inequality developed in colonial and...
Blog
What Can Developing Countries Learn From Finland’s Industrial Transformation?Markus Jäntti and Juhana Vartiainen Finland is an example of a late but successful state-led industrialization that was carried out rapidly. The...
Journal Article
Introducing carbon taxes in South AfricaSouth Africa is considering introducing a carbon tax to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Following a discussion of the motivations for considering a carbon tax, we evaluate potential impacts using a dynamic economywide model linked to an energy...
Working Paper
Cities of Youth
– Post-Millennial Cases of Mobility and Sociality
With a focus on cities in eastern and southern Africa, this paper draws on recent scholarship and my own research in Lusaka, Zambia, to analyse pathways for, and challenges to, greater social mobility for youth against the background of economic...
Policy Brief
Linking Globalization to Poverty in Asia, Latin America and AfricaDespite the enormous potential of globalization in accelerating economic growth through greater integration into the world economy the impact of globalization on poverty reduction has been uneven. Asia has been the major beneficiary of globalization...
Research Brief
Measures of inequality
– How much are we willing to allow top earners to squeeze the poor?
The majority of income inequality occurs at the tails of the income distribution The Gini coefficient does not provide a representative measure of income inequality When the top 10% of income earners expand their share of national income it often...
Journal Special Issue
Symposium on Spatial Inequality in Latin AmericaMany developing and transition countries have considerable regional variation in average household income, poverty, and in health and educational status. National human development indicators can therefore mislead policy-makers when large regional...
Journal Special Issue
WIDER Symposium on Analyzing the Socioeconomic Consequences of Rising Inequality in ChinaGetting an accurate picture of poverty and inequality trends and patterns in the world's most populous country is central to understanding changes in global inequality and poverty – these alter significantly when China is included or excluded...
Journal Special Issue
Inequality and Poverty in ChinaGetting an accurate picture of poverty and inequality trends and patterns in the world’s most populous country is central to understanding changes in global inequality and poverty – these alter significantly when China is included or excluded. China...
Working Paper
Inequality of Opportunity During the Great Recession in UgandaThe paper proposes an analysis of the recent distributional dynamics in Uganda. This analysis is performed by endorsing an opportunity egalitarian perspective, in order to evaluate the outcome dynamics of specific groups of the population and infer...
Working Paper
Income Mobility in Ecuador
– New Evidence from Individual Income Tax Returns
This paper presents new evidence on the study of income mobility in Ecuador over the period 2004–11. We utilize longitudinal data of individual income tax returns to measure income mobility both at the top and at the middle of the income distribution...
Working Paper
When do Relative Prices Matter for Measuring Income Inequality?
– The Case of Food Prices in Mozambique
Changes in relative prices of commodities consumed in different shares across income groups can be expected to alter real income differentials between these groups. Using Mozambican household budget survey and price data from 2002/03 and 2008/09, we...
Working Paper
Analysing Income Distribution Changes
– Anonymous Versus Panel Income Approaches
We reconcile, both theoretically and empirically, changes in inequality with panel income changes over periods of economic growth and decline. We also explore what factors account for the trends of short-run inequality and of inequality in individual...
Working Paper
Growth and Inequality in the Distribution of India’s Consumption Expenditure
– 1983 to 2009-10
This paper undertakes an assessment of the evolution of inequality in the distribution of consumption expenditure in India over the last quarter-century, from 1983 to 2009-10, employing data available in the quinquennial ‘thick’ surveys of the...
Working Paper
Income Inequality in Latin America
– Recent Decline and Prospects for Its Further Reduction
The paper reviews the extent of the income inequality decline that took place in Latin America in 2002-10 and then focuses on the factors that may explain such decline. These include a lowered skill premium following an expansion of secondary...
Working Paper
The UTIP Global Inequality Datasets
– 1963-2008
This paper summarizes a comprehensive revision and update of UTIP’s work on the inequality of pay and incomes around the world, from 1963 to 2008. The new UTIP-UNIDO (University of Texas Inequality Project-United Nations Industrial Development...
Working Paper
The Inequality We Want
– How Much is too Much?
A key aspect defining the contemporary income distribution is the (increasing) share the top holds compared to the rest. This paper shows that income concentration increases towards the very top of the distribution, while the shares the middle- and...
Working Paper
Impact of Education on Inequality Across the Wage Distribution Profile in Cameroon, 2005-10This paper evaluates the impact of education on measured inequality across the wage distribution using pooled records from the 2005 and 2010 Cameroon labour force surveys, wage equations and standard inequality measures. Returns to education...
Working Paper
The global consumption and income project
– An introduction and preliminary findings
We introduce two separate datasets—the Global Consumption Dataset and the Global Income Dataset—containing an unprecedented portrait of consumption and income of persons over time, within and across countries, around the world. The benchmark version...
Working Paper
Reference groups and the poverty line
– An axiomatic approach with an empirical illustration
A recent trend in the study of poverty is to consider a relative poverty line, one that is responsive to the nature of the income distribution. We develop an axiomatic approach to the determination of an amalgam poverty line. Given a reference income...
Working Paper
The Colonial Legacy
– Income Inequality in Former British African Colonies
This paper examines the distribution of top incomes in 15 former British colonies in Africa, drawing on evidence available from income tax records. It seeks to throw light on the position of colonial elites during the period of British rule. Just how...
Working Paper
Estimating the level and distribution of global wealth, 2000–14Davies et al. (2008, 2011) provided the first estimates of the global distribution of wealth, using 2000 as the benchmark year. These estimates have been revised and updated since 2010, and the purpose of this paper is to explain the ways in which...
Working Paper
Monetary Inequality Among Households in Togo
– An Illustration Based on the Decomposition of the Gini Coefficient Using the Shapley Value Approach
This paper aims at measuring and analysing for the first time inequality in the distribution of expenditures among households in Togo according to the characteristics of household heads. The study is based on the most recent survey (QUIBB 2006) and...
Working Paper
The Centre Cannot Hold
– Patterns of Polarization in Nigeria
Our hypothesis is that Nigeria is going through a process of economic polarization. An analysis of this type is new for Nigeria; the limited availability of comparable data has hindered an investigation that requires data series not too close in time...
Working Paper
Intersecting inequalities and the Sustainable Development Goals
– Insights from Brazil
Concerns about the dramatic rise in income inequality across the world and, at the same time, assessments of national progress on the Millennium Development Goals made it clear that it is the intersection of income inequality, marginalized social...
Policy Brief
Linking Globalization to PovertyWhile the economic opportunities offered by globalization can be large, a question is often raised as to whether the actual distribution of gains is fair, in particular, whether the poor benefit less than proportionately from globalization and could...
Working Paper
Global Interpersonal Inequality
– Trends and Measurement
This paper discusses different approaches to the measurement of global interpersonal in equality. Trends in global interpersonal inequality during 1975-2005 are measured using data from UNU-WIDER’s World Income Inequality Database. In order to better...
Working Paper
Gendered Perspectives on Economic Growth and Development in Sub-Saharan AfricaResearchers have linked sub-Saharan Africa’s (SSA) poor growth performance in recent decades to several factors, including geography, institutions, and low returns to investment. This literature has not yet integrated the research that identifies...
Working Paper
Dimensions of African InequalityThis paper discusses dimensions of inequality in sub-Saharan Africa and their causes. It starts with a review of the empirical evidence about inequality during the colonial period as well as the post-independence era. Then it discusses the forces...
Working Paper
Policy Regimes, Inequality, Poverty and Growth
– The Chilean Experience, 1973-2010
Since the 1970s, Chile has exhibited a highly skewed income distribution accompanied with strong fluctuations over time. Although income distribution worsened notably in the 1970s-80s, a significant improvement was recorded in the first half of the...
Working Paper
The Effect of IMF and World Bank Programmes on PovertyStructural adjustment, as measured by the number of adjustment loans from the IMF and World Bank, reduces the growth elasticity of poverty reduction. Growth does reduce poverty, but I find no evidence for a direct effect of structural adjustment on...
Working Paper
Determinants of Income Inequality and its Effects on Economic Growth
– Evidence from African Countries
The paper empirically investigates, in the context of African countries, the determinants of income distribution and inequality, the effect of inequality on economic growth, and the channels through which inequality affects growth. Data for 35...
Working Paper
Uruguay’s Income Inequality and Political Regimes during 1981–2010This study assesses the evolution of inequality in Uruguay during 1981-2010, considered as subperiods built on the basis of the main policy regimes observed: extreme right (1981-84), centre-right (1985-89), right (1990-2004), and centre-left (2005-10...
Working Paper
Inequality in Education
– Evidence for Latin America
This paper provides original empirical evidence on the evolution of education inequality for the Latin American countries over the decades of 1990 and 2000. The analysis covers a wide range of issues on the differences in educational outcomes and...
Working Paper
Global inequality
– How large is the effect of top incomes?
In this paper, we estimate the recent evolution of global interpersonal inequality and examine the effect of omitted top incomes on the level and direction of global inequality. We propose a methodology to estimate the truncation point of household...
Working Paper
Why Engendering PRSPs Reduce Poverty, and the Case of RwandaTo achieve the poverty reduction goal, HIPC countries need to mainstream gender considerations into their PRSPs (poverty reduction strategy papers). Mounting worldwide evidence that greater gender equality correlates with high economic growth and...
Displaying 64 of 461 results