Mainstream monitoring of income dynamics and inequality is based on summary measures that can miss important phenomena prevalent in income distributions. Relying on quantile functions and the adapted statistical framework suggested by Székely and Rizzo (2004), we characterize the change and...

Standard income inequality figures, based on official household survey statistics covering most of the population, report a steady rise of inequality across a majority of advanced countries. The usefulness of these data sources in providing a timely and internationally comparable picture of...

This paper delivers a broad assessment of income inequality in Denmark. As a necessary preamble to provide a basis for discussion, we start by contrasting Danish official inequality measures with those gathered by the OECD in an international context. We show that differences between these two...

In most OECD countries, the gap between rich and poor is at its highest level since 30 years. Today, the richest 10 per cent of the population in the OECD area earn 9.5 times the income of the poorest 10 per cent; in the 1980s this ratio stood at 7:1 and has been rising continuously ever since....

Despite an improvement in overall macroeconomic performance in Costa Rica, income inequality has risen and is currently at its maximum historical value. This is in stark contrast with other Latin American countries, which have recently made significant progress in reducing inequality. This study...

China is well-placed to avoid the so-called “middle-income trap” and to continue to converge towards the more advanced economies, even though growth is likely to slow from near double-digit rates in the first decade of this millennium to around 7% at the 2020 horizon. However, in order to...