The Global Distribution of Income

Clare Leaver and Paul Segal

No 714, Economics Series Working Papers from University of Oxford, Department of Economics

Abstract: This paper investigates recent advances in our understanding of the global distribution of income, and produces the first estimates of global inequality that take into account data on the incomes of the top one percent within countries. We discuss conceptual and methodological issues - including alternative definitions of the global distribution, the use of household surveys and national accounts data, the use of purchasing power parity exchange rates, and the incorporation of recently available data on top incomes from income tax records. We also review recent attempts to estimate the global distribution of income. Our own estimates combine household survey data with top income data, and we analyze various aspects of this disribution, including its within- and between-country components, and changes in relative versus absolute global inequality. Finally, we examine global poverty, which is identified through the lower end of the global distribution.This paper appears in (Eds.) A. B. Atkinson and F. Bourguignon, Handbook of Income Distribution, Volume 2A, Elsevier, Amsterdam, 2015.

Keywords: global inequality; purchasing power parity exchange rates; household surveys; national accounts; top incomes; global poverty (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D63 E01 I32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-07-18
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mac and nep-pbe
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

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