Working Paper
A new inequality estimate for urban India?
This paper applies a novel inequality estimation method to household consumption expenditure in Mumbai, India. Since the richest households may be missing in survey data, this re-estimated inequality figure takes them into account by combining survey...
Blog
Research that matters: A report from the stakeholder workshop - 15 November 2018, Pretoria, South Africa
I found myself in the third-floor conference rooms of a Pretoria hotel for a meeting with economists, researchers, and policymakers involved in the SA...
Working Paper
The effect of top incomes on inequality in South Africa
South Africa exhibits extreme levels of income inequality and is ranked as one of the most unequal countries in the world. In order to measure these severe levels of inequality, it matters how we account for the different parts of the income...
Working Paper
A macroeconomic perspective on Asian development
Macroeconomic strategies and policies have differed significantly among Asian countries over the last fifty years, and yet some common issues recur despite their immense diversity in inherited historical initial conditions, differences in political...
Blog
Urban poverty: cities, slums, and the need for policy action
by
Emily Rains, Anirudh Krishna
October 2022
Developing countries will be predominantly urban by 2030. While urbanization is historically associated with development and broad-based social...
Blog
Sunshine, elephants, and boomerangs: Is a dramatic rise in global income inequality looming?
by
Ravi Kanbur, Eduardo Ortiz-Juarez,
Andy Sumner
March 2022
Global Inequality 101: Global inequality is the distribution of income across all people on the planet from the poorest to the richest. It can be...
Journal Article
Promoting education under distortionary taxation
A common claim in the policy discourse is that a government wishing to achieve equality of opportunity should use public provision of education for equalisation of opportunities rather than income taxation, which only equalizes incomes. We develop a...
Journal Article
Snakes and ladders and loaded dice
Longitudinal surveys allow us to understand how markers of (dis)advantage determine present material welfare and economic upward or downward mobility over time. In this paper, we use five waves of panel data to empirically assess the extent and...
Blog
New WIID Companion to improve the study of inequality
by
Carlos Gradín
April 2021
There is a growing need to understand income inequality trends and how they interplay with other social, economic, and political outcomes, both at the...
Blog
Virtuous circles and downward spirals: The power of ideas & the limits of technocracy
by
Brian Levy
November 2021
What will it take to shake loose the distemper of our times, and initiate a virtuous spiral of renewal? In a recent UNU-WIDER webinar, Alan Hirsch and...
Working Paper
Inequality and voting in fragile countries
The political consequences of economic inequality have been debated in academic and policy circles for centuries. The nature of this relationship seems highly dependent on specific contexts, with empirical studies showing mixed evidence on how...
Working Paper
On the political and social consequences of economic inequality
This paper investigates the impact of inequality on individual civic engagement at the community level, whether this impact persists over time, and what mechanisms may shape the relationship between inequality and civic engagement. The results show...
Research Brief
A game of snakes and ladders with loaded dice
South Africa is often cited as the most unequal economy in the world. Its experience of having to overcome both colonialism and apartheid makes it unique from the vantage of studies on socioeconomic class, economic mobility, and poverty — with...
Blog
Why are workers getting a smaller share of the cake in Mexico?
by
Carlos A. Ibarra, Jaime Ros
February 2019
As with many other developed and emerging economies, in recent decades Mexico has experienced a long-term decline in the labour income share. In other...
Working Paper
Promoting education under distortionary taxation
How does the public provision of education and the deployment of distortionary tax and subsidy instruments differ when the government’s objective is conventional welfarist compared to when the objective is the non-welfarist one of equality of...
Working Paper
Financing the Zambia social cash transfer scale-up
This paper assesses the effects on poverty and inequality of the alternative targeting approaches that Zambia’s Social Cash Transfer programme could take as its expansion continues during the period of the country’s Seventh National Development Plan...
Working Paper
Snakes and ladders and loaded dice
Longitudinal surveys can give insight into economic mobility, which allows us to understand how markers of (dis)advantage are consequential in determining material conditions in the present, and how these markers structure economic opportunity over...
Blog
Measuring inequality in middle-income countries
Income inequality is the result of complex processes with multiple interacting driving forces but understanding those drivers in emerging economies is...
Working Paper
The effect of real exchange rate volatility on income distribution in South Africa
This study investigates the effect of real exchange rate volatility on the distribution of income between labour and capital in South Africa. Both symmetric and asymmetric effects are considered. Using quarterly data for 1985:1–2018:3 and local...
Working Paper
Inequality in India
This paper contributes to the literature by reviewing levels, trends, and structure of inequality since the early 1990s in India. It draws extensively on the existing literature, supplemented with analyses of multiple data sources, to paint a picture...
Project meeting
Kick-off meeting – Gender and Development project
6 May 2015
–
7 May 2015
UNU-WIDER,
Katajanokanlaituri 6 b,
Helsinki,
Finland
Past event
Project workshop
Inequality and governance in unstable democracies – the mediating role of trust: 2nd Annual Workshop
More than 30 participants attended the 2nd annual workshop for ‘Trust and Governance’ project, held virtually on the 16th and 17th April 2020. The workshop was initially set to be held in Colombia but had to be moved to a virtual environment through...
16 April 2020
–
17 April 2020
Virtual (Zoom),
Past event
Presentation
Measuring Inequality in the 21st Century
The Human Development Report Office, LIS, the Stone Center at the City University of New York (CUNY), UNU-WIDER and the World Inequality Lab will host a symposium on Measuring Inequality in the 21st Century. The 2-day event will be held 28-29 March...
28 March 2019
–
29 March 2019
United Nations Headquarters ,
New York,
United States
Past event
Panel discussion
Open dialogue on inequality in the 21st century
29 March 2019
Ex-Press Bar, Third Floor of the General Assembly, United Nations Headquarters,
1st Avenue at 46th Street,
New York,
United States
Past event
Panel discussion
Asian Transformations panel discussion at India International Centre
On 23 December, Professor Deepak Nayyar, editor of Asian Transformations, led a panel discussion on the recent publication at the India International Centre in New Delhi. The book, Asian Transformations: An Inquiry into the Development of Nations...
23 December 2019
India International Centre,
Lodhi Road,
New Delhi,
India
Past event