The wave of upbeat stories on the developing world's emerging middle class has reinvigorated a debate on how social class in general and the middle class in particular ought to be defined and empirically measured. With the aim of adding clarity to this debate, this dissertation provides a...

Income inequality is on the rise, and everyone, from President Obama and Pope Francis to Prince Charles and Standard & Poor's, is talking about it. But these conversations about what are arguably the most significant changes in the distribution of incomes and earnings since the 1940s are leading...

We investigate whether Chinese household incomes have caught up to those of the middle class in the developed world. Using nationwide survey data for 2002 and 2013, we find considerable catch up. Defining the global middle class as being neither poor nor rich in the developed world, we estimate...

Introduction -- A dual economy -- The FTE sector -- The low-wage sector -- Transition -- Race and gender -- The investment theory of politics -- Preferences of the very rich -- Concepts of government -- Mass incarceration -- Public education -- American cities -- Personal debts -- Conclusions...

This paper presents new evidence on the study of income mobility in Ecuador over the period 2004 - 11. We utilize longitudinal data of individual income tax returns to measure income mobility both at the top and at the middle of the income distribution, and we find three main empirical results....