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...

This chapter seeks to throw new light on the emergence of the Chinese economic middle class using data from the China Household Income Project from 2002, 2007, and 2013. We find that between 2002 and 2013 China's income distribution was transformed from a pyramid shape, with a majority having...

This paper studies the effects of globalisation on the income share of the middle class. Our findings suggest that globalisation, proxied by the KOF Economic Globalisation Index, reduces the income share of the middle class. The income share of the poorest 20% also drops due to globalisation,...

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...

This paper presents a methodology for comparing income rank volatility profiles over time and across distributions. While most of the existing measures are affected by changes in marginal distributions, this paper proposes a framework that is based on individuals’ relative positions in the...

Motivated by a recent World Bank report on achieving of Millennium Development Goals which shows that poverty has been declining in all regions of the world with the exception of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), this study puts some empirical structure to theoretical and qualitative studies on the...

Society drifts apart in many dimensions. Economists focus on income of the poor and rich and the distribution of income but a broader spectrum of dimensions is required to draw the picture of multiple facets of individual life. In our study of multidimensional polarization we extend the income...