Publikationsansicht

The Construction and Interpretation of Combined Cross-Section and Time-Series Inequality Datasets

Abstract
The inequality dataset compiled in the 1990s by the World Bank and extended by the UN has been both widely used and strongly criticized. The criticisms raise questions about conclusions drawn from secondary inequality datasets in general. We develop techniques to deal with national and international comparability problems intrinsic to such datasets. The result is a new dataset of consistent inequality series, allowing us to explore problems of measurement error. In addition, the new data allow us to perform parametric non-1inear estimation of Lorenz curves from grouped data. This in turn al1ows us to estimate the entire income distribution; computing alternative inequality indexes and poverty estimates. Finally, we have used our broad1y comparable dataset to examine international patterns of inequality and poverty.. Income distribution datasets; inequality trends; Lorenz curve estimation; poverty estimation

Details der Publikation
Download http://www.tinbergen.nl/discussionpapers/05079.pdf
Archiv RePEc (Germany)
Typ preprint

Literaturangaben in der Publikation (4)
How have the world's poorest fared since the early 1980s? Shaohua Chen and Martin Ravallion (2004)
Computational Tools For Poverty Measurement And Analysis (2000)
The disturbing "rise" of global income inequality (2002)
  • Sala-i-Martin, Xavier
The world distribution of income (estimated from individual country distributions) (2002)
  • Sala-i-Martin, Xavier