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Income Distribution Across Countries: How is it Measured and What Do the Results Show?

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Author Info
Svedberg, Peter () (Institute for International Economic Studies, Stockholm University)
Abstract

Recent studies of trends in the distribution of income across countries and globally have produced highly conflicting results. Several studies, including some from the World Bank and UNDP, have reported that income disparities between nations have more than doubled since 1960. Other investigations have found that income inequality has been reduced over the same period. The three main reasons for the diverging results identified in the paper are the use of different income measurements, different distribution concepts and the weighting or not of countries according to the size of the populations. This paper aims at clarifying the relative importance of these differences behind the conflicting results and to reach a firm conclusion on what has really happened.

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Publisher Info
Paper provided by Stockholm University, Institute for International Economic Studies in its series Seminar Papers with number 698.

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Length: 40 pages
Date of creation: 06 Feb 2002
Date of revision:
Publication status: Forthcoming in Journal of Development Studies.
Handle: RePEc:hhs:iiessp:0698

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Related research
Keywords: Income; distribution; measurements; inter-country comparison;

Find related papers by JEL classification:
D39 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Other
O15 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

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.:
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    Other versions:
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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. Heshmati, Almas, 2004. "Regional Income Inequality in Selected Large Countries," IZA Discussion Papers 1307, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
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