Nonlinear dynamics in welfare and the evolution of world inequality

Davide Fiaschi and Marzia Romanelli

No 724, Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) from Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area

Abstract: The paper proposes a measure of countries' welfare based on individuals' lifetime utility and applies it to a large sample of countries in the period 1960-2000. Even though welfare inequality across countries appeared stable, the distribution dynamics points out the emergence of three clusters. Such tendencies to polarization shall strengthen in the future. In terms of the world population distribution, welfare inequality decreased as the result of the decline in inequality of both per capita GDP and life expectancy, but this downward trend should be reverted hereafter. Finally, a polarization pattern emerged, which is expected to further intensify in the future.

Keywords: distribution of welfare; nonparametric estimation; polarization; distribution dynamics; inequality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C13 D30 D63 O5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Nonlinear Dynamics in Welfare and the Evolution of World Inequality (2009)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bdi:wptemi:td_724_09

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