An alternative to studies of income distribution: University of Texas Inequality Project data sets

Income inequality is one of the most important issues in the economic literature. Since the 1980s, in line with neoliberal model, income inequality has increased both between and within countries. However, it is not easy to have high quality data for long period of time particulary for the developing countries. This study aims to introduce the University of Texas Inequality Project - United Nations Indusrial Development Organization (UTIP-UNIDO) and Estimated Household Income Inequality (EHII) data sets, which are not commonly utilized in the Turkish literature, as alternative to Deininger ve Squire (DS) data set that has some serious problems. These data sets have been constructed by calculating pay inequality in the manufacturing sector by utilizing between-group components of Theil Index and by transforming it into Gini coefficient form. Therefore, this work is not a generel literature survey on income inequality but rather it deals with some particular works by UTIP that uses these data sets.