IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/unu/wpaper/wp-2023-90.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

An assessment of inequality estimates for the case of South Africa

Author

Listed:
  • Muna Shifa
  • Rejoice Mabhena
  • Vimal Ranchhod
  • Murray Leibbrandt

Abstract

A substantial amount of research has been conducted examining inequality in South Africa using multiple data sources. We provide an overview of this research in this paper. Furthermore, we use nationally representative survey data to estimate income and consumption inequality in South Africa between 1993 and 2017, and we discuss the comparability of income and consumption measures across surveys. We compare our estimates of inequality to those in the World Income Inequality Database (WIID), which provides adjusted inequality estimates to ensure consistency across time and countries.

Suggested Citation

  • Muna Shifa & Rejoice Mabhena & Vimal Ranchhod & Murray Leibbrandt, 2023. "An assessment of inequality estimates for the case of South Africa," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2023-90, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    • Handle: RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp-2023-90
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.wider.unu.edu/sites/default/files/Publications/Working-paper/PDF/wp2023-90-assessment-inequality-estimates-case-South-Africa.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Deininger, Klaus & Squire, Lyn, 1996. "A New Data Set Measuring Income Inequality," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 10(3), pages 565-591, September.
    2. Arden Finn & Murray Leibbrandt & Vimal Ranchhod, 2016. "Patterns of persistence: Intergenerational mobility and education in South Africa," SALDRU Working Papers 175, Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, University of Cape Town.
    3. Aroop Chatterjee & Léo Czajka & Amory Gethin, 2021. "Can Redistribution Keep Up with Inequality? Evidence from South Africa, 1993-2019," Working Papers halshs-03364039, HAL.
    4. Mr. Desmond Lachman & Mr. Kenneth Bercuson, 1992. "Economic Policies for a New South Africa," IMF Occasional Papers 1992/003, International Monetary Fund.
    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. Martin Wittenberg & Murray Leibbrandt, 2023. "Investigating inequality trends in Africa: ACEIR research and the WIID," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2023-102, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).

    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. repec:zbw:rwidps:0030 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Robert MacCulloch & Silvia Pezzini, 2010. "The Roles of Freedom, Growth, and Religion in the Taste for Revolution," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 53(2), pages 329-358, May.
    3. Hentschel, Jesko & Lanjouw, Jean Olson & Lanjouw, Peter & Poggi, Javier, 1998. "Combining census and survey data to study spatial dimensions of poverty," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1928, The World Bank.
    4. Elnaz Hajebi & Mohammad Javad Razmi, 2014. "Effect Of Income Inequality On Health Status In A Selection Of Middle And Low Income Countries," Equilibrium. Quarterly Journal of Economics and Economic Policy, Institute of Economic Research, vol. 9(4), pages 133-152, December.
    5. Alvaredo, Facundo & Bourguignon, François & Ferreira, Francisco H. G. & Lustig, Nora, 2023. "Seventy-five Years of Measuring Income Inequality in Latin America," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 13157, Inter-American Development Bank.
    6. Jun, Bogang & Hwang, Won-Sik, 2012. "Financial Hurdles for Human Capital Accumulation: Revisiting the Galor-Zeira Model," MPRA Paper 46317, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Shinhye Chang & Rangan Gupta & Stephen M. Miller, 2018. "Causality Between Per Capita Real GDP and Income Inequality in the U.S.: Evidence from a Wavelet Analysis," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 135(1), pages 269-289, January.
    8. Eduardo A. Haddad & Luis A. Galvis & Inácio F. Araújo-Junior & Vinicius A.Vale, 2018. "Impact Assessment of Scenarios of Interregional Transfers in Colombia," Documentos de Trabajo Sobre Economía Regional y Urbana 16767, Banco de la República, Economía Regional.
    9. Cristiano Perugini & Gaetano Martino, 2008. "Income Inequality Within European Regions: Determinants And Effects On Growth," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 54(3), pages 373-406, September.
    10. Dierk Herzer & Philipp Hühne & Peter Nunnenkamp, 2014. "FDI and Income Inequality—Evidence from Latin American Economies," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(4), pages 778-793, November.
    11. Guillermo Lezama & Henry Willebald, 2020. "Inequality in Pre‐Income Survey Times: A Methodological Proposal," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 66(4), pages 931-957, December.
    12. Atolia, Manoj & Chatterjee, Santanu & Turnovsky, Stephen J., 2012. "Growth and inequality: Dependence on the time path of productivity increases (and other structural changes)," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 331-348.
    13. Frederick Solt, 2009. "Standardizing the World Income Inequality Database," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 90(2), pages 231-242, June.
    14. Nancy Birdsall, 2008. "Income Distribution: Effects on Growth and Development," Chapters, in: Amitava Krishna Dutt & Jaime Ros (ed.), International Handbook of Development Economics, Volumes 1 & 2, volume 0, chapter 48, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    15. Rudiger Ahrend & Carlos Winograd, 2006. "The political economy of mass privatisation and imperfect taxation: Winners and loosers," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 126(1), pages 201-224, January.
    16. Francois, Joseph & Rojas-Romagosa, Hugo, 2005. "The Construction and Interpretation of Combined Cross-Section and Time-Series Inequality Datasets," CEPR Discussion Papers 5214, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    17. Desire Avom & Fabrizio Carmignani & Abdour Chowdhury, "undated". "Four Scenarios of Poverty Reduction and the Role of Economic Policy," MRG Discussion Paper Series 3109, School of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia.
    18. Demombynes, Gabriel & Ozler, Berk, 2005. "Crime and local inequality in South Africa," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 265-292, April.
    19. Arvind Virmani, 2009. "China’s Socialist Market Economy: Lessons for Democratic Developing Countries," Working Papers id:1899, eSocialSciences.
    20. Smith, Lisa C., 1998. "Can FAO's measure of chronic undernourishment be strengthened?," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 23(5), pages 425-445, October.
    21. Nancy Birdsall & Jere R. Behrman & Miguel Székely, 1998. "Movilidad de la enseñanza intergeneracional y condiciones macro y políticas de enseñanza en América Latina," Research Department Publications 4145, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.

    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:unu:wpaper:wp-2023-90. 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: Siméon Rapin (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/widerfi.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.