Military expenditure is difficult to define. Major issues are functional versus institutional approaches to defense, indirect and intangible costs and benefits and current versus comprehensive accounting. Authoritative institutions have adopted standard definitions but national governments are...

This chapter investigates recent advances in our understanding of the global distribution of income, and produces the first estimates of global inequality that take into account data on the incomes of the top one percent within countries. We discuss conceptual and methodological issues –...

Gross domestic product (GDP) is the most widely used indicator from the system of national accounts. Although often interpreted as an indicator for (economic) well-being, it first and foremost monitors economic activity, and falls short of reflecting broader measures which try to capture...