The Inequality We Want: How Much Is Too Much?

Alice Krozer

No 690, LIS Working papers from LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg

Abstract: A key aspect defining the contemporary income distribution is the (increasing) share the top holds compared to the rest. This paper shows that income concentration increases towards the very top of the distribution, while the shares the middle- and upper-middle-income groups hold remain stable across countries and over time. Traditional indicators less sensitive to changes at the extremes of the distribution might obscure inequality's actual dimension, and thereby help perpetuate it. To avoid this, the present paper discusses a complementary indicator for the measurement of inequality: the ratio of the income share of the top 5 per cent over that of the bottom 40 per cent. The indicator is conceptually related to the recently suggested 'Palma ratio' dividing the income share of the top 10 per cent income earners by that of the bottom 40 per cent's.

Keywords: Inequality; Income Distribution; Poverty; Palma; Gini Coefficient (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D31 D63 I3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 41 pages
Date: 2017-03
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Published in Journal of International Commerce, Economics and Policy 6, no.3 (2015), [27 pages].

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.lisdatacenter.org/wps/liswps/690.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
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:lis:liswps:690

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in LIS Working papers from LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Piotr Paradowski ().