This chapter reviews definitional issues that arise in assessing the extent of, and change in, poverty in western industrialized countries, including the choice of resource, level of poverty line and appropriate adjustments for the size and type of the income-sharing unit. The chapter also...

This paper is a review of the post-war literature on income distribution and development. It argues that the literature has cycled from one consensus to another, responding to emerging policy issues and new analysis. On the basis of the review, the paper identifies five areas that will command...

This chapter reviews the existing theories of persistent inequality across generations. The chapter discusses total economic inequality both in wealth and in earnings and focuses on the intergenerational mobility dimension of total inequality. The chapter presents a nonexhaustive, nontechnical...

Income and wealth inequality rose over the first 150 years of US history. They rose in Britain before 1875, especially 1740–1810. The first half of the 20th century equalized pre-fisc incomes both in Britain and in America. From the 1970s to the 1990s inequality rose in both countries,...