Economists use various metrics for measuring income inequality. Here, the most commonly used measures—the Lorenz curve, the Gini coefficient, decile ratios, the Palma ratio, and the Theil index—are discussed in relation to their benefits and limitations. Equally important is the choice of...

The paper aims to encompass evidence on wage distribution and inequality with micro-mobility measures for several countries in the 2000s, by applying pseudo-panel methodology to microdata from the LIS database. Hence, different paths in term of wage growth or stagnation, increasing or declining...

This paper presents a simple conceptual framework specifically tailored to measure individual perceptions of wage inequality. Using internationally comparable survey data, the empirical part of the paper documents that there is huge variation in inequality perceptions both across and within...

We examine the extent to which declining manufacturing employment may have contributed to increasing inequality in advanced economies. This contribution is typically small, except in the United States. We explore two possible explanations: the high initial manufacturing wage premium and the high...

One reason to be concerned about income inequality is the idea that people not only care about their own absolute income, but also their income relative to various reference groups (e.g. co-workers, friends, neighbors, relatives, etc.). We use Canadian linked employer-employee data to estimate...

We analyse the evolution and proximate determinants of labour income inequality in Mexico between 1989 and 2017. Labour income inequality increased between 1989 and 1994 and declined between 1994 and 2006. What happened after 2006 is subject to uncertainty. The national labour force survey shows...

This paper investigates inequality and intragenerational economic mobility in a developing country with large inequality. Understanding economic mobility is important because it shapes our perception of inequality. Despite its significance, evidence on intragenerational mobility, especially that...

We consider the impact of the two recent economic crises, one that resulted from the great recession of 2007-2009 and one following the COVID-19 pandemic, on income inequality and the risk of poverty in Greece. To this end, we also investigate the key macroeconomic variables affecting the Greek...

We show that a recent appendix to the Gini-coefficient to make the latter more sensitive to asymmetric income distributions can be viewed as an abstract measure of skewness. We develop some of its properties and apply it to the US-income distribution in 1974 and 2010.

In this paper we compute inequality measures over the distribution of a subjective well-being variable constructed from a life satisfaction question included in the Gallup World Poll in almost all countries in the world. We argue that inequality in subjective well-being may be a better proxy for...