We synthesize the findings from several recent papers on South Africa's very high income inequality. These papers use new datasets—including income tax data—and new empirical methods to investigate the drivers of household income and individual earnings inequality in South Africa. Increased...

A popular argument for a federal minimum wage is that it will prevent in-work poverty and reduce income inequality. We examine this assertion for Germany, a welfare state with a relative generous means-tested social minimum and high marginal tax rates. Our analysis is based on a microsimulation...

This paper discusses how information and communication technology (ICT) affects the quality and reach of consumer services. These services need to be provided locally, but consist of several components, some of which can be digitised and transmitted over long distances. A general equilibrium...

This paper examines the relationship between changes in the financial sector and the increasing inequality in Germany. For this, first an overview about the development of the main inequality indicators for Germany is given, which show inequality has been rising since the 1980s. Thereafter, the...

Since the 1980s, the share of wages in national income declined almost all over the world. This paper provides an overview of the evolution of labour's share in selected OECD countries. Several theoretical approaches explaining functional income distribution are summarised. In light of the...

A popular argument for a federal minimum wage is that it will prevent in-work poverty and reduce income inequality. We examine this assertion for Germany, a welfare state with a relative generous means-tested social minimum and high marginal tax rates. Our analysis is based on a microsimulation...

This paper provides a comprehensive overview of the development in income distribution and outlines its major long-term trends of 23 countries worldwide. These countries are clustered in four groups covering the core advanced, the Nordic, the emerging, and the least developed economies of the...

Prior studies on emerging economies contend increasing returns to human capital has contributed to the growth of wage inequality over the last few decades. However, this explanation fails to account for an important dynamic of contemporary wage inequality: the growth of top labor incomes....