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Inequality Among World Citizens: 1820–1992

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Author Info
François Bourguignon
Christian Morrisson

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Abstract

This paper investigates the distribution of well being among world citizens during the last two centuries. The estimates show that inequality of world distribution of income worsened from the beginning of the 19th century to World War II and after that seems to have stabilized or to have grown more slowly. In the early 19th century most inequality was due to differences within countries; later, it was due to differences between countries. Inequality in longevity, also increased during the 19th century, but then was reversed in the second half of the 20th century, perhaps mitigating the failure of income inequality to improve in the last decades. (JEL D31, F0, N0, O0)

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File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1257/00028280260344443
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Article provided by American Economic Association in its journal American Economic Review.

Volume (Year): 92 (2002)
Issue (Month): 4 (September)
Pages: 727-744
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Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:92:y:2002:i:4:p:727-744

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  1. Charles I. Jones, . "On the Evolution of the World Income Distribution," Working Papers 97009, Stanford University, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
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  2. Mookherjee, Dilip & Shorrocks, Anthony F, 1982. "A Decomposition Analysis of the Trend in UK Income Inequality," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 92(368), pages 886-902, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Atkinson, Anthony B & Bourguignon, Francois, 1982. "The Comparison of Multi-Dimensioned Distributions of Economic Status," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 49(2), pages 183-201, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Ravallion, Martin & Datt, Gaurav & van de Walle, Dominique, 1991. "Quantifying Absolute Poverty in the Developing World," Review of Income and Wealth, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 37(4), pages 345-61, December.
  5. Shorrocks, A F, 1980. "The Class of Additively Decomposable Inequality Measures," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(3), pages 613-25, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. T. Paul Schultz, 1998. "Inequality in the Distribution of Personal Income in the World: How it is Changing and Why," Working Papers 784, Economic Growth Center, Yale University.
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  7. D Quah, 1996. "Convergence," CEP Discussion Papers 0290, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE. [Downloadable!]
  8. Bourguignon, Francois, 1979. "Decomposable Income Inequality Measures," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 47(4), pages 901-20, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Summers, Robert & Kravis, Irving B. & Heston, Alan, 1984. "Changes in the world income distribution," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 6(2), pages 237-269, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  10. Pritchett, Lant, 1997. "Divergence, Big Time," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 11(3), pages 3-17, Summer. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  11. Quah, Danny T., 1996. "Empirics for economic growth and convergence," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 40(6), pages 1353-1375, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  12. Yotopoulos, Pan A, 1989. "Distributions of Real Income: Within Countries and by World Income Classes," Review of Income and Wealth, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 35(4), pages 357-76, December.
  13. Whalley, John, 1979. "The Worldwide Income Distribution: Some Speculative Calculations," Review of Income and Wealth, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 25(3), pages 261-76, September.
  14. Grosh, Margaret E & Nafziger, E Wayne, 1986. "The Computation of World Income Distribution," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(2), pages 347-59, January.
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Antonio Rodriguez Andres & Carlyn Ramlogan-Dobson, 2008. "Corruption, privatisation and the distribution of income in Latin America," Working Papers 2008/11, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham Business School, Economics Division. [Downloadable!]
  2. Wan, Guanghua & Lu, Ming & Chen, Zhao, 2006. "Globalization and Regional Income Inequality: Empirical evidence from within China," Working Papers RP2006/139, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER). [Downloadable!]
  3. Heshmati, Almas, 2004. "A Review of Decomposition of Income Inequality," IZA Discussion Papers 1221, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
  4. Thanasis Stengos & Ximing Wu & Andreas Savvides, 2008. "The Global Joint Distribution of Income and Health," Working Paper Series 25-08, Rimini Centre for Economic Analysis, revised Jan 2008. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  5. Heshmati, Almas, 2004. "Continental and Sub-Continental Income Inequality," IZA Discussion Papers 1271, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  6. Camelia Minoiu & Sanjay Reddy, 2008. "Kernel Density Estimation Based on Grouped Data: The Case of Poverty Assessment," IMF Working Papers 08/183, International Monetary Fund. [Downloadable!]
  7. Farhad Noorbakhsh, . "International Convergence and Inequality of Human Development: 1975-2001," Working Papers 2006_3, Department of Economics, University of Glasgow. [Downloadable!]
  8. Hoekman & Bernard & Winters, L. Alan, 2005. "Trade and employment : stylized facts and research findings," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3676, The World Bank. [Downloadable!]
  9. Wu, X. & Savvidesy, A. & Stengosz, T., 2008. "The Global Joint Distribution of Income and Health," Working Papers 2008-7, University of Guelph, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  10. Bussolo, Maurizio & De Hoyos, Rafael E. & Medvedev, Denis, 2008. "Is the developing world catching up ? global convergence and national rising dispersion," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4733, The World Bank. [Downloadable!]
  11. Shorrocks, Anthony & Wan, Guanghua, 2008. "Ungrouping Income Distributions: Synthesising Samples for Inequality and Poverty Analysis," Working Papers RP2008/16, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER). [Downloadable!]
  12. Basu, Kaushik, 2005. "Globalization, Poverty and Inequality: What Is the Relationship? What Can Be Done?," Working Papers 05-13, Cornell University, Center for Analytic Economics. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  13. Davies, James B. & Sandstrom, Susanna & Shorrocks, Anthony & Wolff, Edward N., 2008. "The World Distribution of Household Wealth," Working Papers DP2008/03, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER). [Downloadable!]
  14. Dean Jamison & Prabhat Jha & David E. Bloom, 2008. "Disease Control," PGDA Working Papers 3508, Program on the Global Demography of Aging. [Downloadable!]
  15. Eric Berr & François Combarnous, 2004. "L'impact du consensus de Washington sur les pays en développement : une évaluation empirique," Documents de travail 100, Groupe d'Economie du Développement de l'Université Montesquieu Bordeaux IV. [Downloadable!]
  16. Bussolo, Maurizio & De Hoyos, Rafael E. & Medvedev, Denis & van der Mensbrugghe, Dominique, 2008. "Global Growth and Distribution: Are China and India Reshaping the World?," Working Papers RP2008/29, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER). [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  17. Rodrigo R. Soares, 2007. "Health and the Evolution of Welfare across Brazilian Municipalities," IZA Discussion Papers 2771, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  18. Heshmati, Almas, 2004. "The World Distribution of Income and Income Inequality," IZA Discussion Papers 1267, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
  19. Ferreira, Francisco H.G. & Ravallion, Martin, 2008. "Global poverty and inequality : a review of the evidence," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4623, The World Bank. [Downloadable!]
  20. Albert Berry & John Serieux, 2003. "All About the Giants: Probing the Influences on Growth and Income Inequality at the End of the 20th Century," CESifo Working Paper Series CESifo Working Paper No. , CESifo GmbH. [Downloadable!]
  21. Jolly, Richard, 2006. "Inequality in Historical Perspective," Working Papers RP2006/32, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER). [Downloadable!]
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