We estimate trends in global earnings dispersion across occupational groups using a new database covering 66 developed and developing countries between 1970 and 2015. Our main finding is that global earnings inequality has declined, primarily during the 2000s, when the global Gini coefficient...

This paper explores if more generous social spending polices in fact lead to less income inequality, or if redistributive outcomes are offset by behavioral disincentive effects. To account for the inherent endogeneity of social policies with regard to inequality levels, I apply the System GMM...

I determine UK income inequality levels and trends by combining inequality estimates from tax return data (for the 'rich') and household survey data (for the 'non-rich'), taking advantage of the better coverage of top incomes in tax return data (which I demonstrate) and creating income variables...

We offer an explanation for the inconclusive results of empirical studies into the relationship between the magnitude of the Gini coefficient of income distribution at origin and the intensity of migration. Bearing in mind the substantial literature that identifies relative deprivation as an...

The Gini coefficient of labor earnings in Brazil fell by nearly a fifth between 1995 and 2012, from 0.50 to 0.41. The decline in earnings inequality was even larger by other measures, with the 90-10 percentile ratio falling by almost 40 percent. Although the conventional explanation of a falling...

Household survey data provide a rich information set on income, household context and demographic variables, but tend to under report incomes at the very top of the distribution. Administrative data like tax records offer more precise information on top incomes, but at the expense of household...

This paper investigates the relationship between the capital share in national income and personal income inequality over the long run. Using a new historical cross-country database on capital shares in 19 countries and data from the World Wealth and Income Database, we find strong long-run...

This paper is concerned with the problem of ranking Lorenz curves in situations where the Lorenz curves intersect and no unambiguous ranking can be attained without introducing weaker ranking criteria than first-degree Lorenz dominance. To deal with such situations two alternative sequences of...

This paper delivers new insights into the development of income inequality and regional stratification in Germany after unification using a new method for detecting social stratification by a decomposition of the GINI index which yields the obligatory between- and within-group components as well...

Understanding the relationship between disability and employment is critical and has long been the subject of study. However, estimating this relationship is difficult, particularly with survey data, since both disability and employment status are known to be misreported. Here, we use a partial...