What is the distribution of real income within and across countries? The purpose of this paper is to try to answer this question by presenting estimates of the real purchasing power (PPP) parity-adjusted distribution of disposable income for a number of countries. The major tool for converting...

Our objective in this paper is to assess how middle-income groups are faring with the global turn to the market. We suggest some simple measures of the middle-the size and income shares of households around the median (75/125%)-and their income status relative to wealthier counterparts. Our...

In combating poverty, whether or not to design a universal program or a targeted program has been a perpetual dilemma. The objective of this paper is to conduct an international comparison of the 'universality' and 'targeting' of social security systems. The paper presents an outline of...

Constructing typologies or categories of welfare states characterized social policy research during the last decade. Esping-Andersen's Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism (1990) launched an avalanche of typologies. Interest in cross-national comparisons has been facilitated by several attempts to...

This chapter addresses the important issue of the quality of time series data on income distribution. We hope to suggest both standards and practice patterns that will improve the production and use of time series data on inequality. Thus, we address three groups: primary data producers;...

In many OECD countries income inequality has risen, but surprisingly re-distribution as well. The theory attributes this partly to the redistributive effect of education spending. In the model income inequality and growth depend in an inverted U-shaped way on education. To maintain a given level...

The five-parameter generalized beta distribution and ten of its special cases are considered as models fore the size distribution of income. The models are fit to income data for 23 countries and various years - a total of 82 datasets. Of the models considered, the Weibull, Daagum and...

Changes in the headcount rate are the standard metric for gauging how public transfers and taxes affect poverty. An alternative strategy, one theoretically more appealing and complete, is to rely on distribution-sensitive indexes [Sen (1976, 1981)]. How would policies measured impacts change if...