Richard Roll (Anderson School of Management) John Talbott (Global Development Group)
Abstract
During the 1990s, the richest quintile of a country had an average income per capita approximately ten times that of the poorest quintile. We find that the poor of a country are better off relatively, and absolutely, when the country ranks higher in average income, union participation, taxation, government spending, education, and property rights. Under these same conditions, the wealthy of a country also have more absolute per capita income, just not a higher percentage relative to the poor.Countries with substantial black market activity, high levels of international trade (as a percentage of GDP), and former Spanish colonies have greater income disparity; these features also coincide with lower incomes for both rich and poor.Key features of democracy such as political and voting rights, civil liberties and freedom of the press, while important for economic growth, are not independently associated with income inequality.We find little empirical support for a tradeoff between a high level of prosperity and greater equality. Above a very low level of development, appropriate policies are associated with both higher average and more equal income.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (Christopher F. Baum).
Related research
Keywords:
References listed on IDEAS 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.: