The rising inequality of world income distribution

ABSTRACT

According to the author, evidence shows (in seven of eight different measures used) that world income distribution has varying degrees of increasing inequality in the past twenty years. The causes of this increasing inequality are multiple and difficult to establish, but two important ones are the debt trap and the concentration of technological change in high developed countries. It has important economic and social consequences. It also raises implications for reorienting international organizations such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization. (December 2001, Volume 38, Number 4)