In:
Review of Income and Wealth, Wiley, Vol. 60, No. 2 ( 2014-06), p. 279-297
Abstract:
A new dataset for charting the development of global inequality between 1820 and 2000 is presented, based on a large variety of sources and methods for estimating (gross household) income inequality. On this basis we estimate the evolution of global income inequality over the past two centuries. Two sets of benchmarks about between‐country inequality (the M addison 1990 benchmark and the recent 2005 ICP round) are taken into account. We find that between 1820 and 1950, increasing per capita income is combined with increasing global inequality. After 1950, global inequality as measured by the G ini coefficient or the Theil index remains more or less constant. It also appears that the global income distribution was uni‐modal in the nineteenth century, became increasingly bi‐modal between 1910 and 1970 with two world wars, a depression and de‐globalization, and was suddenly transformed back into a uni‐modal distribution between 1980 and 2000.
Type of Medium:
Online Resource
ISSN:
0034-6586
,
1475-4991
DOI:
10.1111/roiw.2014.60.issue-2
Language:
English
Publisher:
Wiley
Publication Date:
2014
detail.hit.zdb_id:
218540-4
detail.hit.zdb_id:
2051176-0
detail.hit.zdb_id:
218541-6
SSG:
3,4
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