Half a world: regional inequality in five great federations

Branko Milanovic

No 3699, Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank

Abstract: Thepaper studies regional (spatial) inequality in the five most populous countries in the world: China, India, the United States, Indonesia, and Brazil in the period 1980-2000. They are all federations or quasi-federations composed of entities with substantial economic autonomy. Two types of regional inequalities are considered: Concept 1 inequality, which is inequality between mean incomes (GDP per capita) of states/provinces, and Concept 2 inequality, which is inequality between population-weighted regional mean incomes. The first inequality speaks to the issue of regional convergence, the second, to the issue of overall inequality as perceived by citizens within a nation. All three Asian countries show rising inequality in terms of both concepts in the 1990s. Divergence in income outcomes is particularly noticeable for the most populous states/provinces in China and India. The United States, where regional inequality is the least, shows further convergence. Brazil, with the highest level of regional inequality, displays no trend. A regression analysis fails to establish robust association between the usual macroeconomic variables and the two types of regional inequality.

Keywords: Inequality; Governance Indicators; Poverty Impact Evaluation; Rural Poverty Reduction; Services&Transfers to Poor (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005-09-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cna, nep-cwa, nep-dev, nep-geo and nep-sea
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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Working Paper: Half a World: Regional inequality in five great federations (2004)
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