The evolution of income distribution over two centuries is an attractive topic because it allows one to test the inverse U-curve hypothesis using long series instead of cross-section data. In Section 1 the distribution trends in countries where global data are available, is considered, that is...

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,...

The rate of homeownership is close to the OECD average in Luxembourg. However, strong house price increases, mainly driven by population growth and limited housing supply, led to a deterioration in affordability of housing, in particular for the young and added to the wealth gap between...

Spain has experienced a dramatic business cycle, starting with a large construction based boom followed by a long recession, resulting in a substantial rise in unemployment, and income and wealth inequality. This paper uses longitudinal data from the Survey of Household Finances over the period...

Sweden is an egalitarian society in international comparison, and has managed to combine equity with economic efficiency. Rapidly rising inequality and relative poverty from a historical low in the 1980s partly stem from ageing, changing family structures and migration. Living standards...

We examine the relationship between income and health with the purpose of establishing the extent to which the distribution of health in a population contributes to income inequality and is itself a product of that inequality. The evidence supports a substantial impact of ill-health on income,...

This chapter reviews the long-run developments in the distribution of personal income and wealth. It also discusses suggested explanations for the observed patterns. We try to answer questions such as: What do we know, and how do we know, about the distribution of income and wealth over time?...

This paper provides an overview of the work of the Expert Group on the Joint Distribution of Income, Consumption and Wealth at Micro Level (EG ICW) set up by Eurostat and the OECD. It discusses the challenges of producing joint income, consumption and wealth estimates, assesses their quality,...