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Inequality Patterns in Western-Type Democracies: Cross-Country Differences and Time Changes

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  • Andrea Brandolini
  • Timothy M. Smeeding

Abstract

The multidimensional view of human well-being has a growing influence on research on inequality and poverty. This development owes much to the conceptualisation of the “capability approach” by Sen (1985, 1987), but the shift has not been confined to academic circles and has extended to policy-oriented analysis. The United Nations Development Programme has challenged since 1990 the primacy of GDP per capita as the measure of progress by proposing the Human Development Index (HDI), which combines income with life expectancy and educational achievement (e.g. UNDP, 2005). The World Development Report 2000/2001: Attacking Poverty opened with the statement that: “This report accepts the now traditional view of poverty...

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  • Andrea Brandolini & Timothy M. Smeeding, 2007. "Inequality Patterns in Western-Type Democracies: Cross-Country Differences and Time Changes," CHILD Working Papers wp08_07, CHILD - Centre for Household, Income, Labour and Demographic economics - ITALY.
    • Handle: RePEc:wpc:wplist:wp08_07
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    Cited by:

    1. Cecilia García-Peñalosa & Elsa Orgiazzi, 2013. "Factor Components of Inequality: A Cross-Country Study," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 59(4), pages 689-727, December.
    2. Frank Cowell & Carlo Fiorio, 2011. "Inequality decompositions—a reconciliation," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 9(4), pages 509-528, December.
    3. Fochesato, Mattia & Bowles, Samuel, 2015. "Nordic exceptionalism? Social democratic egalitarianism in world-historic perspective," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 30-44.
    4. Elvire Guillaud & Michaël Zemmour, 2017. "The redistributive preferences of the well-off," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-01652706, HAL.
    5. Koen Caminada & Chen Wang, 2011. "Disentangling Income Inequality and the Redistributive Effect of Social Transfers and Taxes in 36 LIS Countries," LIS Working papers 567, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    6. Alex M. Gurn, 2016. "Courting Corporate Philanthropy in Public Education," SAGE Open, , vol. 6(2), pages 21582440166, April.
    7. Goudswaard, Kees & Caminada, Koen, 2008. "The redistributive impact of public and private social expenditure," MPRA Paper 20178, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Corgnet, Brice & Sutan, Angela & Veszteg, Róbert F., 2011. "My teammate, myself and I: Experimental evidence on equity and equality norms," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 40(4), pages 347-355, August.
    9. Frank Cowell & Carlo V. Fiorio, 2010. "GINI DP 4: Inequality Decompositions," GINI Discussion Papers 4, AIAS, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies.
    10. Peter Lambert & Thor Thoresen & Runa Nesbakken, 2010. "On the Meaning and Measurement of Redistribution in Cross-Country Comparisons," LIS Working papers 532, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    11. Elena Bárcena-Martin & Jacques Silber, 2013. "On the generalization and decomposition of the Bonferroni index," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 41(4), pages 763-787, October.
    12. Riccardo Massari, 2009. "Is income becoming more polarized Italy? A closer look with a distributional approach," Working Papers 1, Doctoral School of Economics, Sapienza University of Rome.
    13. Kemp-Benedict, Eric, 2011. "Political regimes and income inequality," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 113(3), pages 266-268.
    14. 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.
    15. Cecilia García-Peñalosa, 2010. "Income distribution, economic growth and European integration," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 8(3), pages 277-292, September.
    16. Veli-Matti Ritakallio & Olof B ckman & Johan Fritzell, 2011. "Income inequality and poverty: do the Nordic countries still constitute a family of their own?," LIS Working papers 563, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    17. Broer, Tobias, 2014. "Domestic or global imbalances? Rising income risk and the fall in the US current account," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 47-67.
    18. Caminada, Koen & Goudswaard, Kees & Koster, Ferry, 2010. "Social income transfers and poverty alleviation in OECD countries," MPRA Paper 20733, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Edward N. Wolff & Ajit Zacharias & Thomas Masterson & Selçuk Eren & Andrew Sharpe & Elspeth Hazell, 2012. "A Comparison of Inequality and Living Standards in Canada and the United States Using an Expanded Measure of Economic Well-Being," CSLS Research Reports 2012-01, Centre for the Study of Living Standards.
    20. Chiara Mussida & Maria Laura Parisi, 2016. "The effect of economic crisis on regional income inequality in Italy," DISCE - Quaderni del Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche e Sociali dises1614, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Dipartimenti e Istituti di Scienze Economiche (DISCE).
    21. Carol Vidal & Flavius R. W. Lilly, 2019. "Factor Structure and Concurrent Validity of the British Perceived Inequality in Childhood Scale in a Sample of American College Students," Applied Research in Quality of Life, Springer;International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, vol. 14(5), pages 1287-1300, November.
    22. Caminada, Koen & Goudswaard, Kees & Wang, Chen, 2012. "Disentangling income inequality and the redistributive effect of taxes and transfers in 20 LIS countries over time," MPRA Paper 42350, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    23. Timothy M. Smeeding, 2005. "Public Policy, Economic Inequality, and Poverty: The United States in Comparative Perspective," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 86(s1), pages 955-983, December.
    24. Kaushik Basu, 2016. "Beyond the Invisible Hand: Groundwork for a New Economics," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 9299.

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    Keywords

    income distribution; inequality trends;

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    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution

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