IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0248178.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

First estimates of inequality benchmark incomes for a range of countries

Author

Listed:
  • Laurence S J Roope

Abstract

It is known that virtually all inequality measures imply the existence of a ‘benchmark income’, above which adding incremental income increases inequality, and below which it decreases inequality. Benchmark incomes can be interpreted as social reference levels that identify the richest individual for whom it would be just to subsidize their income. Despite the intuitive appeal of benchmark incomes, there have been hardly any empirical applications to date. This paper provides the first estimates of benchmark incomes for a range of contrasting countries and different inequality measures. All benchmark incomes lie far above official national poverty lines. The results suggest that economic growth together with falling inequality need not necessarily be poverty reducing.

Suggested Citation

  • Laurence S J Roope, 2021. "First estimates of inequality benchmark incomes for a range of countries," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(3), pages 1-8, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0248178
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0248178
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0248178
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0248178&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0248178?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Laurence S. J. Roope, 2019. "Characterizing inequality benchmark incomes," Economic Theory Bulletin, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 7(1), pages 131-145, May.
    2. Peter J. Lambert, 2014. "The Impact of a Marginal Subsidy on Gini Indices: Comment," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 60(3), pages 604-605, September.
    3. Hoffmann, Rodolfo, 2001. "Effect of the rise of a person's income on inequality," Brazilian Review of Econometrics, Sociedade Brasileira de Econometria - SBE, vol. 21(2), November.
    4. Sudhir Anand & Paul Segal, 2008. "What Do We Know about Global Income Inequality?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 46(1), pages 57-94, March.
    5. Peter Lambert & Giuseppe Lanza, 2006. "The effect on inequality of changing one or two incomes," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 4(3), pages 253-277, December.
    6. Stephen Jenkins, 2015. "World income inequality databases: an assessment of WIID and SWIID," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 13(4), pages 629-671, December.
    7. Miguel Niño‐Zarazúa & Laurence Roope & Finn Tarp, 2017. "Global Inequality: Relatively Lower, Absolutely Higher," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 63(4), pages 661-684, December.
    8. Alejandro Corvalan, 2014. "The Impact of a Marginal Subsidy on Gini Indices," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 60(3), pages 596-603, September.
    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. Fernando Antonio Ignacio González & Juan Antonio Dip, 2024. "Whom Is It Fair to Subsidise? Evidence from Argentina," Studies in Microeconomics, , vol. 12(3), pages 260-272, December.

    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. Fernando Antonio Ignacio González & Juan Antonio Dip, 2024. "Whom Is It Fair to Subsidise? Evidence from Argentina," Studies in Microeconomics, , vol. 12(3), pages 260-272, December.
    2. Gradín, Carlos, 2024. "Revisiting the trends in global inequality," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 179(C).
    3. John Creedy, 2016. "Interpreting inequality measures and changes in inequality," New Zealand Economic Papers, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(2), pages 177-192, August.
    4. 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.
    5. Vanesa Jorda & Jose M. Alonso, 2020. "What works to mitigate and reduce relative (and absolute) inequality?: A systematic review," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2020-152, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    6. 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.
    7. Stanislaw Maciej Kot & Piotr Paradowski, 2024. "The Equally Distributed Equivalent Income as the Upper Limit of Poverty Lines," LIS Working papers 885, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    8. John Creedy, 2023. "Comparing Income Distributions Using Atkinson's Measure of Inequality," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 56(1), pages 141-155, March.
    9. Laurence S. J. Roope, 2019. "Characterizing inequality benchmark incomes," Economic Theory Bulletin, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 7(1), pages 131-145, May.
    10. Vanesa Jorda & José María Sarabia & Markus Jäntti, 2020. "Estimation of Income Inequality from Grouped Data," LIS Working papers 804, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    11. Casilda Lasso de la Vega & Christian Seidl, 2007. "The Impossibility of a Just Pigouvian," Working Papers 69, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    12. Miguel Niño‐Zarazúa & Laurence Roope & Finn Tarp, 2017. "Global Inequality: Relatively Lower, Absolutely Higher," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 63(4), pages 661-684, December.
    13. Leandro Prados de la Escosura, 2023. "Inequality Beyond GDP: A Long View," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 69(3), pages 533-554, September.
    14. Tomas Hellebrandt & Paolo Mauro, 2015. "The Future of Worldwide Income Distribution," Working Paper Series WP15-7, Peterson Institute for International Economics.
    15. Guido Erreygers & Philip Clarke & Qiong Zheng, 2017. "On the measurement of socioeconomic inequality of health between countries," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 15(2), pages 175-193, June.
    16. Roope, Laurence & Niño-Zarazúa, Miguel & Tarp, Finn, 2018. "How polarized is the global income distribution?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 86-89.
    17. 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.
    18. Vanesa Jorda & José María Sarabia & Markus Jäntti, 2021. "Inequality measurement with grouped data: Parametric and non‐parametric methods," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 184(3), pages 964-984, July.
    19. Ranjan Ray & Parvin Singh, 2019. "Income Inequality in an Era of Globalisation: The Perils of Taking a Global View," Monash Economics Working Papers 08-19, Monash University, Department of Economics.
    20. Fabio Clementi & Vasco Molini & Francesco Schettino & Haider A. Khan & Michele Fabiani, 2023. "Polarization and its discontents: Morocco before and after the Arab Spring," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 21(1), pages 105-129, March.

    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:plo:pone00:0248178. 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: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    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.