 Indian Income Inequality, 1922‐2015: From British Raj to Billionaire Raj?Lucas Chancel and Thomas Piketty Review of Income and Wealth, 2019, vol. 65, issue S1, S33-S62 Abstract: We combine household surveys and national accounts, as well as recently released tax data to track the dynamics of Indian income inequality from 1922 to 2015. According to our benchmark estimates, the top 1 percent of earners captured less than 21 percent of total income in the late 1930s, before dropping to 6 percent in the early 1980s and rising to 22 percent in the recent period. Our results appear to be robust to a range of alternative assumptions seeking to address numerous data limitations. These findings suggest that much more can be done to promote inclusive growth in India. We also stress the need for more transparency on income and wealth statistics, which is key to allow an informed democratic debate on inequality. Date: 2019 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:revinw:v:65:y:2019:i:s1:p:s33-s62 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from Access Statistics for this article Review of Income and Wealth is currently edited by Conchita D'Ambrosio and Robert J. Hill More articles in Review of Income and Wealth from International Association for Research in Income and Wealth Contact information at EDIRC. |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to econpapers@oru.se.
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.