Income differences arise from many sources. While some kinds of inequality, caused by effort differences, might be associated with faster economic growth, other kinds, arising from unequal opportunities for investment, might be detrimental to economic progress. We construct two new metadata...

This study examines empirically the impact of income polarization on economic growth in an unbalanced panel of more than 70 countries during the 1960–2005 period. We calculate various polarization indices using existing micro-level datasets, as well as datasets reconstructed from grouped data...

This paper introduces a new Lorenz dominance criterion that allows ranking income distributions according to ray-invariant intermediate inequality measures. In doing so, it defines a-Lorenz curves by adapting the generalized Lorenz curves to this case. In addition, it provides an empirical...

This paper examines how spatial price differentials affect income distribution in Italy. The distribution of household income is “reshuffled” after controlling for the purchasing power of households residents in different regions, but only when housing price variations are included in the...

Theoretical and empirical studies exploring the effects of income inequality upon growth reach a disappointing inconclusive result. This paper postulates that one reason for this ambiguity is that income inequality is actually a composite measure of at least two different sorts of inequality:...

Inequality measures are often presented in the form of a rank ordering to highlight their relative magnitudes. However, a rank ordering may produce misleading inference, because the inequality measures themselves are statistical estimators with different standard errors, and because a rank...

This paper introduces a class of intermediate inequality indices, I(?, ?), that is at the same time ray-invariant and unit-consistent. These measures permit us to keep some of the good properties of Krtscha’s (1994) index while keeping the same “centrist” attitude whatever the income...

An income inequality measure satisfies the Pigou-Dalton transfer principle if progressive transfers decrease income inequality. When transfers cause transaction costs, one can trace out the maximum leakage such that the transfer pays at the margin. An income inequality measure is leaky-bucket...

We offer a model of equality of opportunity that encompasses different conceptions expressed in the public debate. In addition to circumstances whose effect on outcome should be compensated and eort which represents a legitimate source of inequality, we introduce a third factor, luck, that...

In contrast to the experience in high-income OECD countries, the introduction of democracy in most low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) has been followed, as a rule, by a concentration of income. Using the median voter hypothesis as analytical tool, this paper explores the conditions under...