World Inequality Database (WID), previously The World Wealth and Income Database, also known as WID.world, is an extensive, open and accessible database "on the historical evolution of the world distribution of income and wealth, both within countries and between countries".

World Inequality Report

WID findings are used by the World Inequality Lab at the

Paris School of Economics The Paris School of Economics (PSE; French: ''École d'économie de Paris'') is a French research institute in the field of economics. It offers MPhil, MSc, and PhD level programmes in various fields of theoretical and applied economics, inclu ...

to compile the

World Inequality Report World Inequality Report is a report by the World Inequality Lab at the Paris School of Economics that provides estimates of global income and wealth inequality based on the most recent findings compiled by the World Inequality Database (WID). WID, ...

. The first report was released December 14, 2017 during the first WID.world Conference. Authors who compiled the report included

Facundo Alvaredo ''Facundo: Civilization and Barbarism'' (original Spanish title: ''Facundo: Civilización y Barbarie'') is a book written in 1845 by Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, a writer and journalist who became the second president of Argentina. It is a corne ...

Lucas Chancel Lucas Chancel (born in 1987 in Grenoble) is a French economist. He is Codirector and Senior economist at the World Inequality Lab of the Paris School of Economics and teaches at Sciences Po. He is also Codirector of the World Inequality Databa ...

Thomas Piketty Thomas Piketty (; born 7 May 1971) is a French economist who is Professor of Economics at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences, Associate Chair at the Paris School of Economics and Centennial Professor of Economics in the I ...

Emmanuel Saez Emmanuel Saez (born November 26, 1972) is a French, naturalized American economist who is Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley. His work, done with Thomas Piketty and Gabriel Zucman, includes tracking the incomes of t ...

, and

Gabriel Zucman Gabriel Zucman (born 30 October 1986) is a French economist who is currently an associate professor of public policy and economics at the University of California, Berkeley‘s Goldman School of Public Policy. The author of '' The Hidden Wealth ...

. WID is part of an international collaborative effort of over a hundred researchers in five continents. The 2022 World Inequality Report was published on Dec. 7th 2021.

History

Pioneers of income inequality studies include

Simon Kuznets Simon Smith Kuznets (; rus, Семён Абра́мович Кузне́ц, p=sʲɪˈmʲɵn ɐˈbraməvʲɪtɕ kʊzʲˈnʲɛts; April 30, 1901 – July 8, 1985) was an American economist and statistician who received the 1971 Nobel Memorial Pr ...

' 1953 study, and

A. B. Atkinson Sir Anthony Barnes Atkinson (4 September 1944 – 1 January 2017) was a British economist, Centennial Professor at the London School of Economics, and senior research fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford. A student of James Meade, Atkinson vir ...

and Alan Harrison's 1978 study. In 1953 Kuznet co-edited ''Shares of Upper Income Groups in Savings''. Kuznet, an

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economist An economist is a professional and practitioner in the social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy. Within this field there are ...

statistician A statistician is a person who works with theoretical or applied statistics. The profession exists in both the private and public sectors. It is common to combine statistical knowledge with expertise in other subjects, and statisticians may wor ...

demographer Demography () is the statistical study of populations, especially human beings. Demographic analysis examines and measures the dimensions and dynamics of populations; it can cover whole societies or groups defined by criteria such as edu ...

economic historian Economic history is the academic learning of economies or economic events of the past. Research is conducted using a combination of historical methods, statistical methods and the application of economic theory to historical situations and in ...

, and winner of the 1971

Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, officially the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel ( sv, Sveriges riksbanks pris i ekonomisk vetenskap till Alfred Nobels minne), is an economics award administered ...

, identified the historical series of economic movements such as "

Kuznets swing The Kuznets swing (or Kuznets cycle) is a claimed medium-range economic wave with a period of 15–25 years identified in 1930 by Simon Kuznets. Kuznets connected these waves with demographic processes, in particular with immigrant inflows/outflows ...

", in the economy cycles.

Thomas Piketty

In '' Capital is Back'',

University of California at Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant uni ...

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with France ...

and

investigate the evolution of aggregate wealth-to-income ratios in the top eight developed economies, reaching back as far as 1700 in the case of the U.S., U.K., Germany, and France, and find that wealth-income ratios have risen from about "200-300% in 1970 to 400-600% in 2010", levels unknown since the 18th and 19th centuries. Most of the change can be explained by the long-run recovery of asset prices, the slowdown of productivity, and population growth.PDF
/ref> According to ''

The New York Times Book Review ''The New York Times Book Review'' (''NYTBR'') is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times'' in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely read ...

'', Zucman is mostly known for his research on

tax haven A tax is a compulsory financial charge or some other type of levy imposed on a taxpayer (an individual or legal entity) by a governmental organization in order to fund government spending and various public expenditures (regional, local, o ...

s, popularized in his book ''

The Hidden Wealth of Nations ''The Hidden Wealth of Nations: The Scourge of Tax Havens'' is a 2013 book by French economist Gabriel Zucman, which popularized the concept of both the tax haven and corporate tax haven. The French publication was translated into English by Tere ...

''.

References

External links

The World Wealth and Income Database
{{authority control Income distribution Taxation and redistribution Economics research Economic research institutes Research on poverty Public economics Books about economic inequality Economic globalization Social inequality Taxation in the United States Economic inequality in the United States