The demographic transition the move from a high fertility/high mortality regime into a low fertility/low mortality regime is one of the most fundamental transformations that countries undertake. To study demographic transitions across time and space, we compile a data set of birth and death...

For a large set of countries, we document how the labor earnings inequality varies with GDP per capita. As countries get richer, the mean-to-median ratio and the Gini coefficient decline. Yet, this decline masks divergent patterns: while inequality at the top of the earnings distribution falls,...