This paper presents preliminary evidence of the annual global income distribution since 1950 using a new integrated dataset that aggregates standardized country income distributions at the percentile level estimated from various sources in the World Income Inequality Database. I analyse the...

This paper discusses past and current social policy strategies in the international aid architecture. From the 1990s, aid strategy and policy shifted to put a stronger emphasis on human development. This accelerated with the Millennium Development Goals and will continue under the Sustainable...

In this paper we argue that the decline in global inequality over the last decades has spurred a 'sunshine' narrative of falling global inequality that has been rather oversold, in the sense, we argue, it is likely to be temporary. We argue the decline in global inequality will reverse due to...

How unequal is the world today? Is global income inequality falling, as many economists claim, or is it rising, as one often hears? This paper reviews the arguments and evidence. A number of concerns about the underlying data are identified, with biases going in both directions. Conceptual...

The interest in the level of global inequality has surged in recent years. This paper complements existing estimates of global inequality by providing the first estimates of the level of bipolarization of the global income distribution. During 1975-2010, global bipolarization declined...

Affirmative action, or positive discrimination favouring the members of marginalized populations, is a key policy approach for addressing group-based inequalities along ethnic, religious, and racial lines (e.g. horizontal inequalities). It is adopted in dozens of countries around the world in...

Affirmative action, or positive discrimination favouring the members of marginalized populations, is a key policy approach to addressing group-based inequalities. It is adopted in dozens of countries around the world in the areas of, for instance, university enrolment, public employment, and...

Building on Rawls' theory of justice and Sen's theory of capabilities, I present an outline of social justice under climate shocks, illustrating it with the experiences of persons with disability. Social justice holds when inequality is responded to by rules that afford more primary goods, such...

Concerns about the dramatic rise in income inequality across the world and, at the same time, assessments of national progress on the Millennium Development Goals made it clear that it is the intersection of income inequality, marginalized social identities and, very often, locational...