The paper empirically investigates, in the context of African countries, the determinants of income distribution and inequality, the effect of inequality on economic growth, and the channels through which inequality affects growth. Data for 35 countries over different periods in the last four...

Recent development literature has placed priority on poverty reduction, and on possible growth enhancement from a more equal distribution of assets and income. At the same time, empirical work consistently shows that economic growth is no more than distribution neutral. In that context, this...

We revisit the link between poverty, the middle class and institutional outcomes using a newly developed cross-country panel dataset containing detailed information on the distribution of income and expenditures. When the size of the middle class increases (measured as the proportion of people...

The enormous increase in economic inequality in the United States should play a central role in public discourse about the federal deficit. This essay reviews statistical evidence of trends in the distribution of income and wealth in the United States. The evidence demonstrates a dramatic...

This paper first points out the lack of consensus between empirical and theoretical studies of income inequality and redistribution. While theoretical papers show that income inequality increases redistribution, empirical studies fail to confirm the same result. The paper later shows that even...

Income inequality and relative poverty in the United States are among the highest in the OECD and have substantially increased over the past decades. These developments have been associated with a number of other worrying statistics, including low intergenerational social mobility and weak real...

One question in the most recent World Values Survey asked whether it is an essential characteristic of democratic governments to tax the rich and subsidize the poor. The present study reports the findings of the survey conducted in South Korea. The overall response and relative ranking are...

The paper introduces the social accounting matrix, SAM, and treats the conversion of the SAM into an economy wide model that employs fixed relative prices and clears market imbalances via flexible quantities. The paper reviews multiplier results relating to the trade-off between economic growth...

The paper demonstrates abilities of the SAM to investigate issues relevant for an advanced economy. i.e. The Netherlands. It studies SAM multipliers for an initial year, examines how they change over later years, and identifies segments that were gainers and losers over ten years. Available data...

Using comparable fiscal incidence analysis, this paper examines the impact of fiscal policy on inequality and poverty in twenty-five countries for around 2010. Success in fiscal redistribution is driven primarily by redistributive effort (share of social spending to GDP in each country) and the...