The evaluation of development processes and of public policies often involves comparisons of social states that differ in income distributions, population sizes and life longevity. This may require social evaluation principles to be sensitive to the quality, the quantity and the duration of...

Income differences arise from many sources. While some kinds of inequality, caused by effort differences, might be associated with faster economic growth, other kinds, arising from unequal opportunities for investment, might be detrimental to economic progress. We construct two new metadata...

This study examines empirically the impact of income polarization on economic growth in an unbalanced panel of more than 70 countries during the 1960-2005 period. We calculate various polarization indices using existing micro-level datasets, as well as datasets reconstructed from grouped data on...

This study examines empirically the impact of income polarization on economic growth in an unbalanced panel of more than 70 countries during the 1960–2005 period. We calculate various polarization indices using existing micro-level datasets, as well as datasets reconstructed from grouped data...

Using newly comprehensive data and tools from the Global Consumption and Income Project or CGIP, covering most of the world and five decades, we present a portrait of the changing global distribution of consumption and income and discuss its implications for our understanding of inequality,...

We incorporate the division of income between capital and labor into analysis on the relationship between inequality and growth. Using historical data, we document that changes in the top 1 % income shares are positively associated with subsequent growth of per capita GDP when the capital share...

This study reexamines the relationship between economic growth and inequality, challenging the conventional view that regards inequality solely as an impediment to development. While recognizing the essential role of economic growth in development plans, our analysis extends beyond this...

This paper explores the relationship between inequality and growth in the context of a unified empirical approach suggested by the theoretical model of Galor and Moav (2004). Based on that model, we construct a new measure, the human capital to physical capital ratio, which is used to study...

This paper develops a fully-endogenous, variety-expansion growth model with firm-specific quality heterogeneity, limit pricing, and an endogenous distribution of markups. Trade induces only firms with high-quality products to export, whereas firms with low-quality products serve only the...

In recent years there has been a growing interest in the impact of inequality on economic growth. Both theoretical and empirical approaches have produced ambiguous results on sign and size of this relationship. Although there is a considerable part of the literature that considers inequality...