The Construction and Interpretation of Combined Cross-Section and Time-Series Inequality DatasetsJoseph Francois () and Hugo Rojas-Romagosa () No 20070805, IIDE Discussion Papers from Institue for International and Development Economics Abstract: The inequality dataset compiled in the 1990s by the World Bank and extended by the UN has been both widely used and strongly criticized. The criticisms raise questions about conclusions drawn from secondary inequality datasets in general. We develop techniques to deal with national and international comparability problems intrinsic to such datasets. The result is a new dataset of consistent inequality series, allowing us to explore problems of measurement error. In addition, the new data allow us to perform parametric non-linear estimation of Lorenz curves from grouped data. This in turn allows us to estimate the entire income distribution, computing alternative inequality indexes and poverty estimates. Finally, we have used our broadly comparable dataset to examine international patterns of inequality and poverty. Keywords: Income distribution datasets; inequality trends; Lorenz curve estimation; poverty estimation (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Access Statistics for this paper More papers in IIDE Discussion Papers from Institue for International and Development Economics |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
Econpapers is hosted by the
Swedish Business School at Örebro University.