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...