Working Paper
Changes in the Distribution of Wealth in China 1995-2002
This paper investigates some major changes in the wealth distribution in China using the data from two national household surveys conducted in 1995 and 2002. The surveys collected rich information on household wealth and its components, enabling a...
Working Paper
Horizontal and intersecting inequalities in Mozambique
This study seeks to add to the research on inequality in least developed countries, namely in Mozambique, by measuring and mapping indicators of horizontal wealth inequality along geographic regions and ethnolinguistic identities. Using census data...
Working Paper
Does Inequality Lead to Conflict?
This paper presents a simple model to show how distributional concerns can engender social conflict. We have a two period model, where the cost of conflict is endogenous in the sense that parties involved have full control over how much conflict they...
Working Paper
Marketable Wealth in a Poor African Country
The study uses an asset index of consumer durables to track changes in household wealth in Ghana during the recent period of strong growth. Using the Ghana Living Standards Survey of 1998 that contains both wealth data and consumer durable data, the...
Working Paper
Land Reform and Landholdings in Brazil
Land and wealth are closely related in rural Brazil, a country characterized by high levels of inequality in terms of income or landholdings. After presenting a historical retrospective of land concentration and land reform in Brazil, this study...
Working Paper
The Evolution of Personal Wealth in the Former Soviet Union and Central and Eastern Europe
This study discusses the evolution of personal wealth in transition economies. While data availability is still a problem, the available indirect evidence suggests privatization has resulted in an increase in personal wealth but also in personal...
Working Paper
Inequality in India
This paper contributes to the literature by reviewing levels, trends, and structure of inequality since the early 1990s in India. It draws extensively on the existing literature, supplemented with analyses of multiple data sources, to paint a picture...
Working Paper
Is It What You Inherited Or What You Learnt?
Using original survey data on Senegal that include an individualized measure of consumption, we study the role played by land inheritance, other bequests and parental background as influences on an adult’s economic welfare and economic activities...
Working Paper
Communication matters: sensitivity in fairness evaluations across wealth inequality expressions and levels
This paper seeks to understand whether the way in which inequality is communicated through measurements influences individuals’ fairness perceptions regarding wealth inequality. It begins from the premise that prominent measures of inequality, such...
Research Brief
Measures of inequality
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...
Blog
Wealth Distribution, the Financial Crisis and Entrepreneurship
by
Wim Naudé, James C. MacGee
March 2009
Wim Naudé and James C. MacGee Globally, wealth is very unequally distributed, both within countries and between countries. The UNU-WIDER project on...
Blog
Extreme poverty - the poorest are being left behind
by
James Stewart
March 2016
At our 30th Anniversary Conference we took the chance to interview Martin Ravallion of Georgetown University—we asked him to discuss his recent work...
Working Paper
A Land Cursed by its Wealth?
In Angola, the availability of two abundant resources (oil and diamonds) has prolonged the conflict beyond its Cold War context. The geography and political economy of these resources were crucial to the course taken by the conflict. Matching the...
Working Paper
Rising Wealth Inequality and Changing Social Structure in Rural China, 1988-95
The paper finds that a new system of social stratification is emerging in rural China in the wake of economic reforms, one that is far less equal than what preceded it. As part of this trend, wealth inequality has increased markedly in a short period...
Working Paper
The World Distribution of Household Wealth
There has been much recent research on the world distribution of income, but also growing recognition of the importance of other contributions to well-being, including those of household wealth. Wealth is important in providing security and...