The “Palma” is the ratio of national income shares of the top 10 percent of households to the bottom 40 percent, reflecting Gabriel Palma's observation of the stability of the “middle” 50 percent share of income across countries so that distribution is largely a question of the tails. In...

This paper revisits the earlier assessments of the Palma Proposition and the ‘Palma Ratio’. The former is a proposition that currently changes in income or consumption inequality are (almost) exclusively due to changes in the share of the richest 10 per cent and poorest 40 per cent because...

Fully public country-by-country reporting would enable a dramatic shift in the accountability of both multinationals and tax jurisdictions. Estimates of the losses due to tax avoidance imply that lower-income countries would benefit disproportionately, as this transparency would offer powerful...

The relationship between economic growth and human development is complex, and even the relatively simple links between economic growth and people not having sufficient money for basic essentials such as food and medicines (known as income poverty) are not well understood. Increasingly urgent...