Global distributions of capital and labor incomes: capitalization of the global middle class

Marco Ranaldi

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: This article studies the global distributions of capital and labor incomes among individuals in 2000 and 2016. By constructing a novel database covering approximately the 80% of the global output and the 60% of the world population, two major findings stand out. First, the world underwent an important process of capitalization. The share of world individuals with positive capital income rose from 20% to 32%. Second, the global middle class benefited the most, in relative terms, from such capitalization process, and China is the main responsible of this global trend. The findings of this paper are robust to changes in the income definition, and top-income adjustments. The global composition of capital and labor incomes is, therefore, more equal today than it was twenty years ago.

Keywords: global inequality; capital ad labor; compositional inequality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 153 pages
Date: 2022-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cna, nep-int and nep-ore
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Downloads: (external link)
http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/113899/ Open access version. (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Global Distributions of Capital and Labor Incomes: Capitalization of the Global Middle Class (2022)
Working Paper: Global Distributions of Capital and Labor Incomes: Capitalization of the Global Middle Class (2021)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:113899

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