Working Paper
How polarized is the global income distribution?
The interest in the level of global inequality has surged in recent years. This paper complements existing estimates of global inequality by providing the first estimates of the level of bipolarization of the global income distribution. During 1975...
Journal Article
How polarized is the global income distribution?
The interest in the level of global inequality has surged in recent years. This paper complements existing estimates of global inequality by providing the first estimates of the level of bipolarization of the global income distribution. During 1975...
Working Paper
The global inequality boomerang
This paper focuses on the past and potential future evolution of income (or consumption) inequality in the world over the period 1981–2040. Inequality in the world has fallen by most common definitions since the late 1980s, and this is largely due to...
Journal Article
Is the era of declining global income inequality over?
This study examines the trajectory of global income inequality since 1981. Commonly used (relative) definitions indicate a decline in global inequality since the late 1980s. Looking ahead, it has been intuited that the influence of China's economic...
Working Paper
What might explain today’s conflicting narratives on global inequality?
How unequal is the world today? Is global income inequality falling, as many economists claim, or is it rising, as one often hears? This paper reviews the arguments and evidence. A number of concerns about the underlying data are identified, with...
Working Paper
A proposal for a new universal development commitment
Most Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development countries have accepted, in principle at least, the 50-year-old commitment of contributing 0.7 per cent of gross national income to supporting the development of countries in the Global...
Policy Brief
Is global inequality rising or falling?
When measured in relative terms, global inequality has been decreasing. However, in absolute terms it has been increasing. What does this mean for analysing and addressing inequality? While it remains vital to continue reducing the global incidence...
Journal Article
A proposal for a new universal development commitment
Most developed countries have accepted, in principle at least, the 50‐year‐old commitment of contributing 0.7 per cent of gross national income to supporting the development of developing countries. But what if all countries made a universal...
Book
Knowledge and Global Inequality Since 1800
This study highlights the monopolization and exclusion from high-value knowledge in analysing divergent and, recently, partially convergent income trends across 200-odd years of the global capitalist economy. A southern lens interrogates this history...
Working Paper
Trends in global inequality using a new integrated dataset
This paper presents preliminary evidence of the annual global income distribution since 1950 using a new integrated dataset that aggregates standardized country income distributions at the percentile level estimated from various sources in the World...