IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/uce/wpaper/1102.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Global Inequality: Beyond the Bottom Billion – A Rapid Review of Income Distribution in 141 Countries

Author

Listed:
  • Isabel Ortiz
  • Matthew Cummins

    (Division of Policy and Practice,UNICEF)

Abstract

This working paper: (i) provides an overview of global, regional and national income inequalities based on the latest distribution data from the World Bank, UNU-WIDER and Eurostat; (ii) discusses the negative implications of rising income inequality for development; (iii) calls for placing equity at the center of development in the context of the United Nations development agenda; (iv) describes the likelihood of inequalities being exacerbated during the global economic crisis; (v) advocates for urgent policy changes at national and international levels to ensure a “Recovery for All”; and, (vi) to serve as a general reference source, Annex 2 provides a summary of the most up-to-date income distribution and inequality data for 141 countries

Suggested Citation

  • Isabel Ortiz & Matthew Cummins, 2011. "Global Inequality: Beyond the Bottom Billion – A Rapid Review of Income Distribution in 141 Countries," Working papers 1102, UNICEF,Division of Policy and Strategy.
    • Handle: RePEc:uce:wpaper:1102
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.unicef.org/socialpolicy/files/Global_Inequality_REVISED_-_5_July.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sanjay Reddy & Camelia Minoiu, 2009. "Real Income Stagnation of Countries 1960-2001," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(1), pages 1-23.
    2. Isabel Ortiz & Jingqing Chai & Matthew Cummins, 2011. "Escalating Food Prices: The threat to poor households and policies to safeguard a Recovery for All," Working papers 1101, UNICEF,Division of Policy and Strategy.
    3. DAVIES, JAMES B & Shorrocks, Anthony & Sandstrom, Susanna & WOLFF, EDWARD N, 2007. "The World Distribution of Household Wealth," Center for Global, International and Regional Studies, Working Paper Series qt3jv048hx, Center for Global, International and Regional Studies, UC Santa Cruz.
    4. Stephen Machin & John Van Reenen, 2007. "Changes in Wage Inequality," CEP Special Papers 18, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    5. Isabel Ortiz, 2007. "Social Policy," Policy Notes 6, United Nations, Department of Economics and Social Affairs.
    6. Giovanni Andrea Cornia, 2005. "Policy Reform and Income Distribution," Working Papers 3, United Nations, Department of Economics and Social Affairs.
    7. Aditya Bhattacharjea, 2003. "Book Review: Kicking away the Ladder: Development Strategy in Historical Perspective," Indian Economic Review, Department of Economics, Delhi School of Economics, vol. 38(1), pages 126-129, January.
    8. Giovanni Andrea Cornia, 2003. "The Impact of Liberalisation and Globalisation on Income Inequality in Developing and Transitional Economies," CESifo Working Paper Series 843, CESifo Group Munich.
    9. Andrew Mold, 2003. "Kicking away the ladder: development strategy in historical perspective by HA-JOON CHANG. (London: Anthem Press, 2002, pp. 187)," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 15(5), pages 668-670.
    10. Hulya Dagdeviren & Rolph van der Hoeven & John Weeks, 2000. "Redistribution Matters: Growth for Poverty Reduction," Working Papers 99, Department of Economics, SOAS, University of London, UK.
    11. Cornia, Giovanni Andrea, 2010. "Transition, Structural Divergence,and Performance: Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union over 2000-2007," WIDER Working Paper Series 032, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    12. Kanbur, Ravi & Lustig, Nora, 1999. "Why is Inequality Back on the Agenda?," Working Papers 127690, Cornell University, Department of Applied Economics and Management.
    13. Ronald Mendoza, 2009. "Aggregate Shocks, Poor Household and Children: Transmission Channels and Policy Responses," Working papers 0901, UNICEF,Division of Policy and Strategy.
    14. International Monetary Fund, 2002. "Financial Crises, Poverty, and Income Distribution," IMF Working Papers 02/4, International Monetary Fund.
    15. Steve Dowrick & Muhammad Akmal, 2005. "Contradictory Trends In Global Income Inequality: A Tale Of Two Biases," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 51(2), pages 201-229, June.
    16. Giovanni Andrea Cornia & Bruno Martorano, 2010. "Policies for Reducing Income Inequality: Latin America During the Last Decade," Working papers 1006, UNICEF,Division of Policy and Strategy.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Nathalie Chusseau & Joël Hellier, 2012. "Inequality in Emerging Countries," Working Papers hal-00993411, HAL.
    2. Joyeeta Gupta & Courtney Vegelin, 2016. "Sustainable development goals and inclusive development," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 16(3), pages 433-448, June.
    3. Guillermo Cruces & Gary Fields & David Jaume & Mariana Viollaz, 2015. "The growth-employment-poverty nexus in Latin America in the 2000s: Cross-country analysis," WIDER Working Paper Series 110, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    4. OGREAN Claudia & HERCIU Mihaela, 2015. "Arguments For Csr-Based Sustainable Competitiveness Of Multinationals In Emerging Markets (Part Ii)," Studies in Business and Economics, Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, Faculty of Economic Sciences, vol. 10(1), pages 92-102, April.
    5. Ryan Higgitt, 2013. "Colonialism, Casteism and Development: South-South Cooperation as a ?New? Development Paradigm," Working Papers 112, International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth.
    6. Kaldewei, Cornelia & Weller, Jürgen, 2013. "Empleo, crecimiento sostenible e igualdad," Macroeconomía del Desarrollo 145, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL).
    7. Daniele, Vittorio & Malanima, Paolo, 2016. "Trends in Mediterranean Inequalities 1950-2015," MPRA Paper 78324, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Sebastian Jauch & Sebastian Watzka, 2016. "Financial development and income inequality: a panel data approach," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 51(1), pages 291-314, August.
    9. Isaac Kalonda Kanyama, 2017. "Patterns and trends in horizontal inequality in the Democratic Republic of the Congo," WIDER Working Paper Series 151, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    10. Jan Vandemoortele, 2012. "Equity Begins with Children," Working papers 1201, UNICEF,Division of Policy and Strategy.
    11. -, 2014. "Inestabilidad y desigualdad: La vulnerabilidad del crecimiento en América Latina y el Caribe," Libros de la CEPAL, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL), number 128 edited by Cepal.
    12. Tilman Altenburg & Wilfried Lütkenhorst, 2015. "Industrial Policy in Developing Countries," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 14726.
    13. Rémi Bazillier & Jérôme Héricourt, 2014. "The Circular Relationship between Inequality, Leverage, and Financial Crises: Intertwined Mechanisms and Competing Evidence," Working Papers 2014-22, CEPII research center.
    14. Ryan Higgitt, 2013. "South-South Cooperation and Inclusive Growth," One Pager 213, International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth.
    15. Lawrence Haddad, 2015. "Equity: Not Only for Idealists," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 33(1), pages 5-13, January.
    16. Ortiz, Isabel, & Cummins, Matthew. & Karunanethy, Kalaivani., 2015. "Fiscal space for social protection options to expand social investments in 187 countries," ILO Working Papers 994877663402676, International Labour Organization.
    17. Isabel Ortiz & Jingqing Chai & Matthew Cummins, 2011. "Identifying Fiscal Space:Options for Social and Economic Development for Children and Poor Households in 184 Countries," Working papers 1108, UNICEF,Division of Policy and Strategy.
    18. Sebastian Jauch & Sebastian Watzka, 2011. "Financial Development and Income Inequality: A Panel Data Approach," CESifo Working Paper Series 3687, CESifo Group Munich.
    19. Pickett, Kate E. & Wilkinson, Richard G., 2015. "Income inequality and health: A causal review," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 316-326.
    20. Mohamed BEN AMAR & Nahed ZGHIDI, 2016. "The relationship between inclusive growth, inequality and poverty in Africa," Theoretical and Applied Economics, Asociatia Generala a Economistilor din Romania - AGER, vol. 0(2(607), S), pages 117-126, Summer.
    21. repec:spr:soinre:v:132:y:2017:i:3:d:10.1007_s11205-016-1325-2 is not listed on IDEAS
    22. Mehmet Ferhat Özbek & Mohammad Asif Yoldash & Thomas Li-Ping Tang, 2016. "Theory of Justice, OCB, and Individualism: Kyrgyz Citizens," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 137(2), pages 365-382, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    income inequality; income distribution; quintiles; equity; crisis recovery; development policy;

    JEL classification:

    • D6 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • D3 - Microeconomics - - Distribution
    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • O1 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development
    • O2 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Development Planning and Policy

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:uce:wpaper:1102. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Maria Clara Osorio). General contact details of provider: http://www.unicef.org .

    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.

    If CitEc recognized a reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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.

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.