IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fds/dpaper/202603.html

What do we really know about inequality?

Author

Listed:
  • Makram El-Shagi

    (Center for Financial Development and Stability at Henan University, and School of Economics at Henan University, Kaifeng, Henan
    Center for Financial Development and Stability at Henan University, and School of Economics at Henan University, Kaifeng, Henan)

Abstract

This paper documents systematic and economically meaningful differences across the two most widely used cross-country inequality databases, SWIID and WID. Using the full set of overlapping country-year observations since 1980, we show that agreement between the databases is limited not only in levels but, more importantly, in within-country dynamics. For market-income inequality in particular, correlations decline sharply over time and are close to zero in recent decades. We further demonstrate that established empirical findings are highly sensitive to the choice of inequality data. The divergence between databases cannot be reduced to simple definitional differences such as population coverage or equivalization. Taken together, our results imply that database choice is not a second-order technical detail but a central determinant of empirical conclusions in the inequality literature.

Suggested Citation

  • Makram El-Shagi, 2026. "What do we really know about inequality?," CFDS Discussion Paper Series 2026/3, Center for Financial Development and Stability at Henan University, Kaifeng, Henan, China.
    • Handle: RePEc:fds:dpaper:202603
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://cfds.henuecon.education/images/dpaper/WP_3_2026_Know_About_Inequality.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2026
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • C23 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Models with Panel Data; Spatio-temporal Models
    • C82 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Data Collection and Data Estimation Methodology; Computer Programs - - - Methodology for Collecting, Estimating, and Organizing Macroeconomic Data; Data Access
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fds:dpaper:202603. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kerstin El-Shagi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sehencn.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.