This analysis examines the relationship between nonrenewable resource dependence, economic growth and income inequality. It uses a two-equation system in which the Gini index and GDP per capita are the dependent variables and the stock of nonrenewable resources as a share of national wealth-i.e....

The Gini coefficient of labor earnings in Brazil fell by nearly a fifth between 1995 and 2012, from 0.50 to 0.41. The decline in earnings inequality was even larger by other measures, with the 90-10 percentile ratio falling by almost 40 percent. Although the conventional explanation of a falling...

This paper presents a new methodology to measure inequality that optimally combines household survey information and tax records to construct a complete income distribution. Combining the two data sources is necessary because, on the one hand, household surveys do not accurately represent the...

Using a new database of household surveys, this paper examines inequality among all individuals living in developing East Asia regardless of their country of residence. The East Asian Gini index increased from 39.0 in 1988 to 43.3 in 2012. Inequality increased during the initial decade,...

This study assesses the redistributive impact of fiscal policy -- including expenditures and taxation -- in the Arab Republic of Egypt. Using a broadly applied methodology, a fiscal incidence analysis is conducted using survey and government data for fiscal year 2015. Evidence shows that...

This paper studies future poverty, inequality, and shared prosperity outcomes using a panel data set with 150 countries over 1980-2014. The findings suggest that global extreme poverty will decrease in absolute and relative terms in the period 2015-2030. However, absolute poverty is likely to...

This paper argues that labor supply elasticities encode information about the determinants of income inequality. In the theoretical framework, individuals choose labor supply conditional on productivities and preferences for consumption relative to leisure. The paper shows that reduced-form...

This paper uses methods developed by the Commitment to Equity Institute and data from the Household Budget Survey to assess the effects of government taxation and social spending on poverty and inequality in Moldova. The paper presents the first detailed distributional analysis of the tax and...

The paper offers an overview of some key conceptual aspects associated with the rise of global value chains (GVCs). It outlines a series of alternative interpretations and definitions of what the rise of GVCs entails, and it traces the implications of these alternative conceptualizations for the...

This paper provides insights to inform government efforts to attract and retain foreign direct investment, by analyzing the results of a survey of more than 2,400 affiliates of multinational enterprises across 10 middle-income countries. The paper explores corporate perspectives and...