A Profile of International Inequality

Abstract

This paper attempts to portray a profile of international inequality or inequality of real income among nations, assuming that total income of every country is equally distributed among its population. Also, in an attempt to find the contributions of incomes of different groups of countries to total inequality, a new method of disaggregation of the Gini coefficient is applied to global inequality. While only two types of grouping are analyzed, the method is flexible enough to deal with any type of grouping. It is demonstrated that important questions regarding the effects of economic growth in a subgroup of countries on global inequality can be answered using this method. Thus, the elasticities of the Gini coefficient of the disparity among countries with respect to income of specific groups are presented.