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From the Editor's desk (October 2011)
Tony Addison As autumn moves into winter in Helsinki, it is time to bring you the October edition of UNU-WIDER’s newsletter, WIDER Angle. Regular...
82 UNU-WIDER articles, publications, projects, experts...
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Blog
Wealth Distribution, the Financial Crisis and EntrepreneurshipWim Naudé and James C. MacGee Globally, wealth is very unequally distributed, both within countries and between countries. The UNU-WIDER project on...
Research Brief
Measures of inequalityThe 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...
Working Paper
Smoothing or strengthening the ‘Great Gatsby curve’?We examine the heterogeneous and dynamic impact of China’s New Rural Pension Scheme on intergenerational wealth dependence using a nationally representative longitudinal household survey covering the period 2011–13. We adopt an instrumental quantile...
Journal Article
Estimating the level and distribution of global wealth, 2000–2014Part of Journal Special Issue Inequality
Book Chapter
Recent Distributive Changes in Latin AmericaPart of Book Falling Inequality in Latin America
Blog
From the Editor's Desk (March 2015)
I’m writing this editorial from Dar es Salaam, while at the 20th anniversary workshop for Tanzania’s REPOA, one of our research partners. UNU-WIDER...
Blog
Researching Inequality – An Interview with James B. Davies
James B. Davies, Professor of Economics at the University of Western Ontario, played a key role in UNU-WIDER’s pioneering research into global...
Working Paper
Sovereign Debt and Uncertainty in the Mozambican EconomyThis paper studies the impact of uncertainty and debt crisis on the dynamics of the Mozambican economy over the last two decades. Investment boom and accelerated growth did not take place until peace and economic reforms were assured, helped by the...
Blog
Researching and Reporting on Global Wealth – Two Interviews with Anthony Shorrocks
30 October 2014 by Roger Williamson In this interview Professor Anthony Shorrocks describes the methodology to research global household wealth...
Working Paper
The copper sector, fiscal rules, and stabilization funds in ChileHistorically, Chile has been an economy dominated by mineral and agro-industrial products and subject to frequent external shocks particularly in copper prices. Since the 1980s, the authorities have developed various mechanisms to cope with these...
Journal Article
Income, Wealth, and Socialization in ArgentinaPart of Journal Special Issue Symposium on Spatial Inequality in Latin America
Journal Article
The Impact of IT Investment on Income and Wealth Inequality in the Postwar US EconomyPart of Journal Special Issue The New Economy
Book Chapter
Sharing Ownership via Employee Stock OwnershipPart of Book Ownership and Governance of Enterprises
Working Paper
Estimating the Level and Distribution of Global Household WealthWe provide the first estimate of the level and distribution of global household wealth. Mean assets and debts within countries are measured, partly or wholly, for 38 countries using household balance sheet and survey data centred on the year 2000...
Working Paper
Communication matters: sensitivity in fairness evaluations across wealth inequality expressions and levelsThis 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...
Working Paper
So close and yet so far: the ability of mandatory disclosure rules to crack down on offshore tax evasionWe study the short-term effect of the introduction of the mandatory disclosure programme for aggressive tax arrangements by focusing on the one introduced in May 2018 under Council Directive 2018/288/EU (or DAC6). Employing bilateral data on cross...
Working Paper
Changes in the Distribution of Wealth in China 1995-2002This 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 MozambiqueThis 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...
Book Chapter
Comparing global inequality of income and wealthPart of Book Inequality in the Developing World
Working Paper
The World Distribution of Household WealthThere 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...
Journal Article
Elite capture of foreign aidDo elites capture foreign aid? This study documents that aid disbursements to highly aid-dependent countries coincide with sharp increases in bank deposits in offshore financial centers known for bank secrecy and private wealth management but not in...
Working Paper
Measuring Economic InsecurityWe provide an axiomatic treatment of the measurement of economic insecurity, assuming that individual insecurity depends on the current wealth level and its variations experienced in the past. The first component plays the role of a buffer stock to...
Working Paper
The Simple Analytics of Elite Behaviour Under Limited State CapacityThis paper discusses the issue of taxation and redistribution in economies dominated by Elites with limited state capacity. Within a simple aggregate framework, we discuss the political economy incentives of Elites to tax, redistribute and increase...
Working Paper
The New Grand Bourgeoisie under Post-CommunismIn the former socialist redistributive economies, the transition to market economy and the conversion to private ownership followed different trajectories. The paper offers an overview on how a new class of grand bourgeoisie was formed in three...
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...
Journal Article
The Intergenerational Impact of China's New Rural Pension SchemePart of Journal Special Issue Welfare and distributive effects of social assistance in the Global South
Working Paper
Survey Estimates of Wealth Holdings in OECD CountriesThis paper discusses issues that arise in the comparison of estimates of wealth holdings and their distribution in light of data for selected OECD countries. We find large differences in the level of wealth, depending on whether the mean or median...
Working Paper
Marketable Wealth in a Poor African CountryThe 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 BrazilLand 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 EuropeThis 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 IndiaThis 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
The Distribution of Household Wealth in IndiaThis paper reviews the principal source of India’s wealth distribution statistics, which is constituted by the five decennial Reserve Bank of India National Sample Survey Organization Surveys on Debt and Investment of 1961-62, 1971-72, 1981-82, 1991...
Working Paper
Household Wealth in Latin AmericaThis paper provides a descriptive analysis of wealth ownership and wealth inequality in Latin American countries, using diverse published sources and primary data analysis for 16 nations. We produce estimates of the distribution of home ownership...
Working Paper
Concentration among the RichThe aim of this paper is to examine the concentration of wealth among the group of top wealth holders, defined as those with wealth in excess of a high cut off. The paper begins by considering the definition of this cut off, analogous to the...
Working Paper
Land Titles, Credit Markets and Wealth DistributionsDoes the existence of formal title to land and real estate matter for the distribution of wealth? This paper reviews the empirical literature on the economic impact of land and real estate administration systems across countries. This paper argues...
Working Paper
Asset Portfolios in AfricaThis paper considers asset holdings in rural Ethiopia. It shows that households own mostly non-financial assets and that the composition of asset portfolios varies significantly with the household’s overall wealth and its exposure to uncertainty. As...
Working Paper
Estimating the Balance Sheet of the Personal Sector in an Emerging Market CountryOfficial balance sheet estimates for the household sector are not currently available in South Africa, yet, with the country’s well developed financial sector and deep capital markets, asset market channels are likely to be important determinants of...
Working Paper
Long-Run Changes in the Concentration of WealthThe objective of this paper is to study the dynamics of the wealth distribution over the path of economic development. More specifically, we are interested in distinguishing between changes which seem to be country specific and characteristics shared...
Working Paper
A Wider Approach to Aid EffectivenessIn this paper we discuss the results of research into the impact of foreign aid on human development. Rather than focusing on per capita income, as is common in the existing literature, we look at how aid impacts on a range of human development...
Journal Article
Inequality in Education and Wealth in TanzaniaPart of Journal Special Issue Horizontal inequality in the Global South
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, 1988-95The 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
Comparing global inequality of income and wealthThis paper is the first to compare global trends in income and wealth inequality this century. It is based on large income and wealth microdata samples designed to be representative of all countries in the world.Measured by the Gini coefficient...
Book Chapter
The copper sector, fiscal rules, and stabilization funds in ChilePart of Book Extractive Industries
Blog
Extreme poverty - the poorest are being left behind
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
Sharing Ownership via Employee Stock OwnershipIncreased equity participation by employees has attracted substantial interest for its potential to affect both economic outcomes (e.g., worker and firm performance) and social outcomes (e.g., wealth and income inequality). This paper summarizes the...
Working Paper
The Impact of IT Investment on Income and Wealth Inequality in the Postwar US EconomyInequality in the distribution of family income, which had remained virtually unchanged since the end of World War II until 1968, has increased sharply since then. Inequality in household wealth has increased even more dramatically, with the share of...
Blog
Sharing for Prosperity
17 April 2013 Minister Heikki Eidsvoll Holmås Economic growth in itself will not end poverty. Stronger policies for fairer distribution are needed in...
Book Chapter
Achieving Health, Wealth and WisdomPart of Book Achieving the Millennium Development Goals
Book Chapter
The World Distribution of Household WealthPart of Book Personal Wealth from a Global Perspective
Book Chapter
Land Titles, Credit Markets, and Wealth DistributionPart of Book Personal Wealth from a Global Perspective
Book Chapter
Marketable Wealth in a Poor African CountryPart of Book Personal Wealth from a Global Perspective
Book Chapter
Estimating the Balance Sheet of the Personal Sector in an Emerging Market CountryPart of Book Personal Wealth from a Global Perspective
Book Chapter
Land Reform and Land Holdings in BrazilPart of Book Personal Wealth from a Global Perspective
Book Chapter
Household Wealth in Latin AmericaPart of Book Personal Wealth from a Global Perspective
Book Chapter
The Evolution of Personal Wealth in the Former Soviet Union and Central and Eastern EuropePart of Book Personal Wealth from a Global Perspective
Book Chapter
The Distribution of Household Wealth in IndiaPart of Book Personal Wealth from a Global Perspective
Book Chapter
Changes in the Distribution of Wealth in China, 1995-2002Part of Book Personal Wealth from a Global Perspective
Displaying 64 of 82 results