The purpose of this project is to advance data collection, measurement, and research regarding the development of inequality in the world. A major focus in this research area is the maintenance, updating, and development of the World Income Inequality Database (WIID) which is currently the most comprehensive and complete database on inequality indicators. It gathers information on income inequality in all the countries in the world for which suitable data is available and it is freely downloadable at the UNU-WIDER website. The project also generates new research output based on WIID data. This includes a study on the drivers of within-country inequality, with a particular emphasis on the impacts of tax and spending policies. The project also contributes to the design of suitable financing of redistributive transfers systems by conducting research on tax policies in developing countries.
In large parts of the world, income inequality has been rising in recent decades. Other regions have experienced declining trends in income inequality. This raises the question of which mechanisms underlie contrasting observed trends in income...
The time limit to reach the goals of the 2030 Agenda is now just eight years away. It is vital to pursue a new model of partnerships, based on...
The author discusses a new approach which decomposes inequality into the contributions of population groups by income sources. The author estimates a matrix with rows and columns which indicate different population groups and income sources...
After 20 years of contributions to income inequality research, the World Income Inequality Database (the WIID) is getting a new expansion that will...
An influential paper by Berg et al., ‘Redistribution, inequality, and growth: new evidence’, uses the SWIID data to examine the impact of inequality and redistribution on growth in both developing and developed countries. It finds that while...
In this paper, we use the World Income Inequality Database to assess the main trends in inequality within countries since around 1990. We cope with the heterogeneity in the original information (regarding the measure of resources, equivalence scale...
In large parts of the world, income inequality has been rising in recent decades. Other regions have experienced declining trends in income inequality. This raises the question of which mechanisms underlie contrasting observed trends in income...
This study re-examines the determinants of redistribution in light of improved data and methods relative to earlier literature. In particular, we use the latest version of the UNU‐WIDER’s Income Inequality Database to have the best available...
The understanding of inequality requires the analysis of changes in income distributions across countries and over time as well as the identification...
Despite the growing interest in global inequality, assessing inequality trends is a major challenge because individual data on income or consumption is not often available. Nevertheless, the periodic release of certain summary statistics of the...
I discuss a new approach which decomposes inequality into the contributions of population groups by income sources. I estimate a matrix with rows and columns which indicate different population groups and income sources respectively, with each...
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