Global Inequality of Opportunity: How Much of Our Income Is Determined by Where We Live?

Suppose that all people in the world are allocated only two characteristics over which they have (almost) no control: country of residence and income distribution within that country. Assume further that there is no migration. We show that more than one-half of variability in income of world population classified according to their household per capita in 1% income groups (by country) is accounted for by these two characteristics. The role of effort or luck cannot play a large role in explaining the global distribution of individual income. © 2015 The President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology