IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ecr/col070/43949.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

More unequal or less? A review of global, regional and national income inequality

Author

Listed:
  • Colacce, Maira
  • Amarante, Verónica

Abstract

This article presents a multi-perspective discussion of trends in income inequality. Recent evidence from many sources shows that global income inequality is high and relatively stable, with the main changes being driven by developments in China and India. In developed countries, the trend has been towards higher levels of inequality over the last thirty years; and this has also been true of developing countries in the past decade, with the exception of Latin America, which is analysed here in detail. In the region, income became less unevenly distributed between 2002 and 2014, mainly because inequality within countries declined in most cases; but the latest measurements suggest that this trend is faltering.

Suggested Citation

  • Colacce, Maira & Amarante, Verónica, 2018. "More unequal or less? A review of global, regional and national income inequality," Revista CEPAL, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL), April.
    • Handle: RePEc:ecr:col070:43949
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://repositorio.cepal.org/handle/11362/43949
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. François Bourguignon, 2015. "The Globalization of Inequality," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 10433.
    2. Anthony B. Atkinson & Thomas Piketty & Emmanuel Saez, 2011. "Top Incomes in the Long Run of History," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 49(1), pages 3-71, March.
    3. Dennis Tao Yang & Hao Zhou, 1999. "Rural-urban disparity and sectoral labour allocation in China," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(3), pages 105-133.
    4. Meng, Xin & Shen, Kailing & Xue, Sen, 2013. "Economic reform, education expansion, and earnings inequality for urban males in China, 1988–2009," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 227-244.
    5. Bartolini, Stefano & Sarracino, Francesco, 2014. "The dark side of Chinese growth: Explaining decreasing well-being in times of economic boom," MPRA Paper 57765, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Bosmans, Kristof & Cowell, Frank A., 2010. "The class of absolute decomposable inequality measures," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 109(3), pages 154-156, December.
    7. Cornia, Giovanni Andrea (ed.), 2014. "Falling Inequality in Latin America: Policy Changes and Lessons," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198701804.
    8. repec:hal:pseose:halshs-00879814 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Leonardo Gasparini & Pablo Glüzmann, 2012. "Estimating Income Poverty and Inequality from the GallupWorld Poll: The case of Latin America and the Caribbean," Journal of Income Distribution, Ad libros publications inc., vol. 21(1), pages 3-27, March.
    10. repec:wyi:journl:002165 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Anthony B. Atkinson & Andrea Brandolini, 2010. "On Analyzing the World Distribution of Income," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 24(1), pages 1-37, January.
    12. Anthony B. Atkinson & Salvatore Morelli, 2014. "Chartbook of economic inequality," Working Papers 324, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    13. Christoph Lakner & Branko Milanovic, 2016. "Global Income Distribution: From the Fall of the Berlin Wall to the Great Recession," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 30(2), pages 203-232.
    14. Thomas Piketty & Emmanuel Saez, 2013. "Top Incomes and the Great Recession: Recent Evolutions and Policy Implications," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 61(3), pages 456-478, August.
    15. Niño-Zarazúa, Miguel & Roope, Laurence & Tarp, Finn, 2014. "Global interpersonal inequality Trends and measurement," MPRA Paper 52881, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Ravallion, Martin & Chen, Shaohua, 2003. "Measuring pro-poor growth," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 78(1), pages 93-99, January.
    17. -, 2018. "CEPAL Review no. 124," Revista CEPAL, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL), April.
    18. Miguel Sz�kely & Pamela Mendoza, 2015. "Is the Decline in Inequality in Latin America Here to Stay?," Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(3), pages 397-419, August.
    19. Nicolas Ruiz & Nicolas Woloszko, 2016. "What do household surveys suggest about the top 1% incomes and inequality in OECD countries?," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 1265, OECD Publishing.
    20. Roxana MAURIZIO & Gustavo VÁZQUEZ, 2016. "Distribution effects of the minimum wage in four Latin American countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Uruguay," International Labour Review, International Labour Organization, vol. 155(1), pages 97-131, March.
    21. Salvatore Morelli & Timothy Smeeding & Jeffrey Thompson, 2014. "Post-1970 Trends in Within-Country Inequality and Poverty: Rich and Middle Income Countries," CSEF Working Papers 356, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.
    22. Amarante, Verónica & Galván, Marco & Mancero, Xavier, 2016. "Inequality in Latin America: a global measurement," Revista CEPAL, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL), April.
    23. Satya Chakravarty & Swami Tyagarupananda, 2009. "The subgroup decomposable intermediate indices of inequality," Spanish Economic Review, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 11(2), pages 83-97, June.
    24. Niño-Zarazúa, Miguel & Roope, Laurence & Tarp, Finn, 2014. "Global interpersonal inequality Trends and measurement," MPRA Paper 52881, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    25. Dollar, David, 2007. "Poverty, inequality, and social disparities during China's economic reform," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4253, The World Bank.
    26. Verónica Amarante & Martín Brun, 2018. "Cash Transfers in Latin America: Effects on Poverty and Redistribution," Economía Journal, The Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association - LACEA, vol. 0(Fall 2018), pages 1-31, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Joaquín Prieto, 2021. "Poverty traps and affluence shields: Modelling the persistence of income position in Chile," Working Papers 576, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    2. Bustos, Claudio & Candia Cid, Jessica & Martínez, David & Merino Escobar, José Manuel, 2021. "Inequality and social polarization in Chilean municipalities," Revista CEPAL, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL), April.
    3. Prieto Suarez, Joaquin, 2021. "Poverty traps and affluence shields: modelling the persistence of income position in Chile," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 110719, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Amarante, Verónica & Galván, Marco & Mancero, Xavier, 2016. "Inequality in Latin America: a global measurement," Revista CEPAL, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL), April.
    2. Nora Lustig, 2018. "Measuring the Distribution of Household Income, Consumption and Wealth: State of Play and Measurement Challenges," Working Papers 1801, Tulane University, Department of Economics.
    3. Jordá, Vanesa & Niño-Zarazúa, Miguel, 2019. "Global inequality: How large is the effect of top incomes?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 1-1.
    4. Facundo Alvaredo & Leonardo Gasparini, 2013. "Recent Trends in Inequality and Poverty in Developing Countries," CEDLAS, Working Papers 0151, CEDLAS, Universidad Nacional de La Plata.
    5. Frank A. Cowell & Philippe Kerm, 2015. "Wealth Inequality: A Survey," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(4), pages 671-710, September.
    6. Guillermo Cruces & Gary S. Fields & David Jaume & Mariana Viollaz, 2015. "The growth-employment-poverty nexus in Latin America in the 2000s: Cross-country analysis," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2015-110, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    7. Amer Ahmed & Maurizio Bussolo & Marcio Cruz & Delfin S. Go & Israel Osorio-Rodarte, 2020. "Global Inequality in a more educated world," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 18(4), pages 585-616, December.
    8. Diego Winkelried & Bruno Escobar, 2022. "Declining inequality in Latin America? Robustness checks for Peru," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 20(1), pages 223-243, March.
    9. Leopoldo Tornarolli & Matías Ciaschi & Luciana Galeano, 2018. "Income Distribution in Latin America. The Evolution in the Last 20 Years: A Global Approach," CEDLAS, Working Papers 0234, CEDLAS, Universidad Nacional de La Plata.
    10. Carlos Rodriguez-Castelan & Luis F. Lopez-Calva & Nora Lustig & Daniel Valderrama, 2016. "Understanding the Dynamics of Labor Income Inequality in Latin America," Working Papers 1608, Tulane University, Department of Economics.
    11. Guillermo Cruces & Gary Fields & David Jaume & Mariana Viollaz, 2015. "The growth-employment-poverty nexus in Latin America in the 2000s: Cross-country analysis," WIDER Working Paper Series 110, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    12. Nora Lustig, 2020. "The ``missing rich'' in household surveys: causes and correction approaches," Working Papers 520, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    13. Lahoti Rahul & Jayadev Arjun & Reddy Sanjay, 2016. "The Global Consumption and Income Project (GCIP): An Overview," Journal of Globalization and Development, De Gruyter, vol. 7(1), pages 61-108, June.
    14. Anand, Sudhir & Segal, Paul, 2017. "Who Are the Global Top 1%?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 111-126.
    15. Vladimir Hlasny, 2019. "Redistributive Impacts of Fiscal Policies in Mexico: Corrections for Top Income Measurement Problems," LIS Working papers 765, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    16. Stephen P. Jenkins, 2017. "Pareto Models, Top Incomes and Recent Trends in UK Income Inequality," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 84(334), pages 261-289, April.
    17. La-Bhus Fah Jirasavetakul & Christoph Lakner, 2020. "The Distribution of Consumption Expenditure in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Inequality Among All Africans," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 29(1), pages 1-25.
    18. Timothy Smeeding & Jonathan Latner, 2015. "PovcalNet, WDI and ‘All the Ginis’: a critical review," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 13(4), pages 603-628, December.
    19. Anthony Shorrocks & James Davies, 2018. "Comparing global inequality of income and wealth," WIDER Working Paper Series 160, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    20. Salvatore Morelli, 2018. "Banking crises in the US: the response of top income shares in a historical perspective," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 16(2), pages 257-294, June.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ecr:col070:43949. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Biblioteca CEPAL (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/eclaccl.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.