In the past 30 years Costa Rica has grown steadily and social indicators have improved markedly. Well-being indicators are comparable or even above the OECD average in several dimensions, such as health, environment or life-satisfaction. This paper reviews the social progress that Costa Rica has...

This paper provides an assessment of how households’ income has fared compared with GDP. While the prime focus is on incomes around the median, attention is paid also to the bottom of the income distribution. Thus, one contribution of the paper is to deliver a fresh assessment of the evolution...

Structural trends not directly related to labour market functioning and redistribution have made a sizeable contribution to inequality and poverty in Sweden, but occupy only limited space in the income inequality debate. To fill this gap, we put a quarter of a century of rising inequality in...

New Zealand generally performs well in terms of economic and social inclusion. It has high employment rates, and education and health-care systems work well for most. However, some New Zealanders are stuck on low incomes and face material deprivation and multiple barriers to economic and social...

Income inequality in Colombia has declined since the early 2000s but remains very high by international standards. Income dispersion largely originates from the labour market, which is characterised by a still high unemployment rate, a pervasive informal sector and a wide wage dispersion...

Notwithstanding impressive progress, poverty and inequality remain high in Chile in OECD comparison, and the tax-benefit system does little to improve on this. The government plans to introduce a new cash transfer for the poor, the Ingreso Ético Familiar. This is a welcome initiative. However,...

This paper analyses income inequality in Ireland using a new panel dataset based on the administrative tax records of the Revenue Commissioners for Ireland. High inequality at market incomes in Ireland by international standards appears to be driven by both ends of the income distribution. An...

Income inequality and relative poverty in the United States are among the highest in the OECD and have substantially increased over the past decades. These developments have been associated with a number of other worrying statistics, including low intergenerational social mobility and weak real...

Luxembourg is a rich and fast-growing country. However, inequality of disposable incomes has trended up modestly over the past decades and relative poverty has risen reflecting mainly the rapid growth of high incomes. The relatively high inequality of market incomes is substantially reduced by...

Poor growth performance over the past decades in Europe has increased concerns for rising income dispersion and social exclusion. European authorities have recently launched the Europe 2020 strategy which aims to improve social inclusion in Europe on top of already existing European regional...