World Income Inequality Databases: An Assessment of WIID and SWIID

Stephen Jenkins

No 8501, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This article assesses two secondary data compilations about income inequality – the World Income Inequality Database (WIIDv2c), and the Standardized World Income Inequality Database (SWIIDv4.0) which is based on WIID but with all observations multiply-imputed. WIID and SWIID are convenient and accessible sources for researchers seeking cross-national data with global coverage for relatively long time periods. Against these benefits must be set costs arising from lack of data comparability and quality and also, in the case of SWIID, questions about its imputation model. WIID and SWIID users need to recognize this benefit-cost trade-off and ensure their substantive conclusions are robust to potential data problems. I provide detailed description of the nature and contents of both sources plus illustrative regression analysis. From a data issues perspective, I recommend WIID over SWIID, though my support for use of WIID is conditional.

Keywords: Gini; inequality; global inequality; imputation; WIID; SWIID (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C81 C82 D31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 66 pages
Date: 2014-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lam and nep-ltv
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (16)

Published - published in: Journal of Economic Inequality, 2015, 13 (4), 629 - 671

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp8501.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: World income inequality databases: an assessment of WIID and SWIID (2015)
Working Paper: World income inequality databases: an assessment of WIID and SWIID (2015)
Working Paper: World Income Inequality Databases: an assessment of WIID and SWIID (2014)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp8501

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().