Sen (1973 and 1997) presents the Gini coefficient of income inequality in a population as follows. "In any pair-wise comparison the man with the lower income can be thought to be suffering from some depression on finding his income to be lower. Let this depression be proportional to the...

The social stress experienced by an individual from having a low relative income or from having a low income-based rank is a derivative of the individual's location in social space, and is the outcome of unfavorable comparisons with other individuals in that space. (The term social space stands...

The merger of populations expands the comparison space of incomes. As a result, measures of the income-based social stress and of the income inequality of the constituent populations need to be replaced by new measures. To this end, we develop a procedure for calculating the aggregate social...

This article provides an overview of the literature on mobility in developing countries. Explicit distinctions are drawn between directional and non-directional measures, absolute and relative measures, and combinations thereof. We note that the scarcity of panel data has hindered the...

We study the relationship between inequality and social instability. While the argument that inequality can be damaging for the cohesion of a society is well established, the empirical evidence is mixed. We use a novel approach to isolate the causal relationship running from inequality to social...

In this paper we review recent developments in axiomatic studies of Marxian exploitation theory. First, given the acute controversy over the formal definition of exploitation during the 1970-1990s, we review the study of the axiomatic framework, which identifies some fundamental properties -...

In well-functioning democracies, the policymaking process should in principle respond to persistent economic inequality with corrective policies. This process is set in motion through majority demands for redistributive taxation and spending that elected representatives eventually supply through...

There is a clear and persistent inequality of bureaucratic employment between individuals with a bureaucrat parent and those without. Using the recent anti-corruption campaign in China as a quasi-experiment, we investigate how endeavors for counter-corruption affect inequality and potential...

We investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on income levels, poverty, and inequality in both the immediate aftermath and during the uneven recovery until December 2021 using high-frequency household survey data from India. We find that the average household incomes dropped sharply during...

Malaysia provides for interesting paradoxes. Poverty was reduced by adopting a horizontal perspective to policy planning through affirmative action targeting one ethnic group lagging economically in society. However, outcomes of affirmative action include growing wealth and income disparities, a...