WIID – World Income Inequality Database

Archive of 2014-18

Visit the WIID home page for the most up to date information on the WIID. This page is the project from 2014 to 2018. 

The World Income Inequality Database (WIID) presents information on income inequality for developed, developing, and transition countries. It provides the most comprehensive set of income inequality statistics available and can be downloaded for free. ​

The latest version of the WIID, released in May 2020, covers 200 countries (including historical entities), with over 11,000 data points in total. With the current version, the latest observations now reach the year 2018. The data can be downloaded here. WIID is also available in the interactive visualization tool.

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Research focal point: Carlos Gradín

Database manager: Antti Pelanteri

Research Assistant: Anustup Kundu

Project assistant: Iina Kuuttila

Communications: Timothy Shipp

 

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WIID – World Income Inequality Database – 2014-18

World Income Inequality Database (WIID) – 2019-23

Patterns and drivers of global inequality – 2024-27

 

25 articles, publications, projects, experts...

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    Book Chapter
    Explaining income inequality trends
    – An integrated approach

    In large parts of the world, income inequality has been rising in recent decades. Other regions have experienced declining trends in income inequality. This raises the question of which mechanisms underlie contrasting observed trends in income...

    Database
    World Income Inequality Database - WIID

    The World Income Inequality Database (WIID) presents information on income inequality for most countries and historical entities. It provides the most comprehensive set of income inequality statistics available and can be downloaded for free. ​This...

    Working Paper
    Redistribution, inequality, and growth revisited
    – Comment on 'Redistribution, inequality, and growth: new evidence'

    An influential paper by Berg et al., ‘Redistribution, inequality, and growth: new evidence’, uses the SWIID data to examine the impact of inequality and redistribution on growth in both developing and developed countries. It finds that while...

    Working Paper
    Changes in inequality within countries after 1990

    In this paper, we use the World Income Inequality Database to assess the main trends in inequality within countries since around 1990.We cope with the heterogeneity in the original information (regarding the measure of resources, equivalence scale...

    News
    UNU-WIDER releases new version of the World Income Inequality Database
    Presentation
    Measuring Inequality in the 21st Century

    The Human Development Report Office, LIS, the Stone Center at the City University of New York (CUNY), UNU-WIDER and the World Inequality Lab will host a symposium on Measuring Inequality in the 21st Century. The 2-day event will be held 28-29 March...

    Thu, 28 March 2019 – Fri, 29 March 2019
    United Nations Headquarters , New York, United States
    Past event
    News
    New data on income inequality – WIID4 released

    The UNU-WIDER World Income Inequality Database ― widely known by its acronym WIID ― presents information on income inequality for developed, developing, and transition countries. The WIID provides the most comprehensive set of income inequality...

    Database
    World Income Inequality Database - WIID4

    The current revision ― WIID4 ― is the fourth major update of the database. The observations now reach the year 2017 and coverage is extended to 189 countries (including historical entities), with over 11,000 data points in total. There are now almost 3,500 unique country-year observations

    Parallel session
    Global inequality (Income and Wealth)

    The economics profession has witnessed an increasing interest in the analysis of inequality of income and wealth with a global perspective. This has led to a growing research trying to understand the trends and driving forces of global inequality...

    Presentation
    Understanding global and local inequalities: An EU - AFD initiative

    The recently established Research Facility on Inequalities is funded by the European Commission under its Development Cooperation Instrument. The Research Facility on Inequalities is implemented by Agence Française de Développement (AFD). This new...

    Mon, 15 January 2018
    Le Mistral, Nelson Mandela Auditorium, 3 Place Louis-Armand, 75012 Paris, France
    Past event
    In the media
    Nigerian daily business paper draws on the WIID

    An editorial published in Business Day, a daily business newspaper based in Lagos, has drawn on the World Income Inequality Database (WIID) to point to Nigeria’s growing inequality. The piece uses the database along with measures from the World Bank...

    Carlos Gradín is a Professor of Applied Economics at the Universidade de Vigo (Galicia, Spain) and a member of the EQUALITAS research network. His main research interests are poverty, inequality, and discrimination at the country level and globally...

    News
    New data on income inequality – WIID3.4 released

    The UNU-WIDER World Income Inequality Database ― widely known by its acronym WIID ― collects and stores information on income inequality for developed, developing, and transition countries. WIID provides the most comprehensive set of income...

    Database
    World Income Inequality Database - WIID3.4

    The current revision ― WIID3.4 ― is an update of the third major revision of the database, WIID3. The current version includes observations for six additional countries, with the latest observations now reaching the year 2015. In total, the data cover 182 countries with 8,817 observations.

    Seminar
    Inequality - Trends worldwide and in India
    Fri, 22 January 2016
    Juniper Hall at India Habitat Centre, Lodhi Road, Delhi, India
    Past event
    Article
    What is inequality?

    Inequality is typically viewed as different people or households having different degrees of living standards. Thus, inequality is concerned with the relative position of different individuals (or households) within a distribution. Why does it matter...

    Displaying 16 of 25 results

    Context

    Main subject

    This project is part of World inequality

    Theme: Past, 1998-99