This paper presents a methodology for comparing income rank volatility profiles over time and across distributions …

European countries. Using the special module of the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions micro-data on … importance of income vulnerability for the middle class is on a par with (or even greater than) economic factors such as severe … the lower income bound of the middle class (75% of the national median income) and not the poverty line (60% of the median …

Asian countries with a window of opportunity to leap from low/middle income levels to high income levels. It may sound easy …/middle to high income levels are often overlooked. Careful studies in history reveal that the experience of moving up the ladder … conditions or policy counter-measures that lead to higher income levels under changing external circumstances. This is …

In a rare example of an explicit national goal for income distribution besides reducing poverty, China's leadership has … recently committed to expanding the middle-income share--moving to a less polarized "olive-shaped" distribution. Recognizing … the potential trade-offs, the paper asks whether China's experience indicates that income-polarization was a by-product of …