Global Income Distribution: From the Fall of the Berlin Wall to the Great Recession

The paper presents a newly compiled and
\n improved database of national household surveys between 1988
\n and 2008. In 2008, the global Gini index is around 70.5
\n percent having declined by approximately 2 Gini points over
\n this twenty year period. When it is adjusted for the likely
\n under-reporting of top incomes in surveys by using the gap
\n between national accounts consumption and survey means in
\n combination with a Pareto-type imputation of the upper tail,
\n the estimate is a much higher global Gini of almost 76
\n percent. With such an adjustment the downward trend in the
\n Gini almost disappears. Tracking the evolution of individual
\n…