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 other measures of earnings inequality was even larger, with the 90-10 percentile ratio falling by almost 40 percent. Applying micro-econometric decomposition...

Two related measures of educational inequality are proposed: one for educational achievement and another for educational opportunity. The former is the simple variance (or standard deviation) of test scores. Its selection is informed by consideration of two measurement issues that have typically...

A growing number of developing economies are providing cash transfers to poor people that require certain behaviors on their part, such as attending school or regularly visiting health care facilities. A simple ex ante methodology is proposed for evaluating such programs and used to assess the...

This paper provides evidence from eight developing countries of an inverse relationship between poverty and city size. Poverty is both more widespread and deeper in very small and small towns than in large or very large cities. This basic pattern is generally robust to the choice of poverty...

We present an improved panel database of national household surveys between 1988 and 2008. In 2008, the global Gini index is around 70.5%, having declined by approximately 2 Gini points. China graduated from the bottom ranks, changing a twin-peaked global income distribution to a single-peaked...

A growing number of developing economies are providing cash transfers to poor people that require certain behaviors on their part, such as attending school or regularly visiting health care facilities. A simple ex ante methodology is proposed for evaluating such programs and used to assess the...

New data derived directly from household surveys are used to examine the effects of globalization on income distribution in poor and rich countries. The article looks at the impact of openness (proxied by the ratio of trade to gdp) and of direct foreign investment on relative income shares...

Eastern Europe experienced an economic crisis between 1978 and 1987. Declining income led to substantial increases in poverty rates in Poland and Yugoslavia, while poverty in Hungary remained at about the same level as before the crisis. In all three countries urban poverty increased, as the...

Economic transition in Russia was accompanied by a precipitous decline in real income for most of the population. This article analyzes how the decline affected people's perception of the minimum level of income needed to make ends meet. Individual-level data collected from repeated surveys...

New data derived directly from household surveys are used to examine the effects of globalization on income distribution in poor and rich countries. The article looks at the impact of openness and of direct foreign investment on relative income shares across the entire income distribution. It...