This paper uses a dynamic macro-micro framework to evaluate the potential distributional effects of the expansion of the Panama Canal. The results show that large macroeconomic effects are only likely during the operations phase (2014 and onward), and income gains are likely to be concentrated...

In many developing countries, the supply of skilled workers is likely to continue to be stronger than demand, and this should drive down the skill premium and reduce inequality. Within the limitations of any exercise based on simulations, this paper finds that the recently observed reduction in...

Over the past 20 years, aggregate measures of global inequality have changed little even if significant structural changes have been observed. High growth rates of China and India lifted millions out of poverty, while the stagnation in many African countries caused them to fall behind. Using the...

The growing economic fissures in the societies of Europe and Central Asia between generations, between insiders and outsiders in the labor market, between rural and urban communities, and between the super-rich and everyone else, are threatening the sustainability of the social contract. The...

The halving of oil prices, which happened in a short period between late 2014 and the first months of 2015, has generated major terms of trade losses for oil exporting countries. Even if the oil producing sector normally employs a small group of workers and oil export revenues tend to be...

This paper assesses the potential impacts of the removal of agricultural and other trade distortions using a newly developed dataset and methodological approach for evaluating the global poverty and inequality effects of policy reforms. It finds that liberalization of agriculture will increase...

This paper uses data from a survey of 116,061 households in India to study people's beliefs about inequality and demand for redistribution. The findings show that a household's beliefs about inequality, implied by the perception of their position on the income distribution, is negatively...