Inequality in the Developing World

Carlos Gradín is a Research Fellow at the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER) in Helsinki, and Professor of Applied Economics at the University of Vigo. His main research interest is the study of poverty, inequality, and discrimination in both developed and developing countries, especially inequalities between population groups. His research deals with enhancing the empirical evidence as well as methodological tools for the measurement and understanding of those issues. His research has been widely published in several international journals.Murray Leibbrandt holds the National Research Foundation Chair in Poverty and Inequality Research in the School of Economics at the University of Cape Town. He is the Director of the Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit and the African Centre of Excellence for Inequality Research within the African Research Universities Alliance. He is on the Executive Committee of the International Economic Association and is a Senior Research Fellow of UNU-WIDER. From 2007 to 2019 he was a Principal Investigator on the National Income Dynamics Study, South Africa's national longitudinal study. He has published widely in development economics using survey data and especially panel data to analyse South African poverty, inequality, and labour market dynamics.Finn Tarp is a Professor at the University of Copenhagen (UCPH) and Coordinator of the UCPH Development Economics Research Group (DERG). Director of UNU-WIDER from 2009 to 2018, and now a Non-Resident Senior Fellow of UNU-WIDER, Professor Tarp is a leading international expert on development strategy and foreign aid, with an interest in poverty, income distribution, and growth, micro- and macroeconomic policy and modelling, agricultural sector policy and planning, household/enterprise development, and economic adjustment and reform as well as climate change, sustainability, and natural resources. He has published widely in leading economics and development journals and books by international academic publishers.

• PART I: INTRODUCTION1: Carlos Gradín, Murray Leibbrandt, and Finn Tarp: Setting the scenePART II: GLOBAL INEQUALITY AND INEQUALITY WITHIN COUNTRIES2: Martin Ravallion: What might explain today's conflicting narratives on global inequality?3: James Davies and Anthony Shorrocks: Comparing global inequality of income and wealth4: Daniele Checchi, Andrej Cupak, and Teresa Munzi: Empirical challenges comparing inequality across countries: the case of middle-income countries from the LIS DatabasePART III: INEQUALITY IN FIVE DEVELOPING GIANTS5: Marcelo Neri: Brazil: what are the main drivers of income distribution changes in the new millennium?6: Shi Li, Terry Sicular, and Finn Tarp: China: structural change, transition, rent seeking and corruption, and government policy7: Hai-Anh H. Dang and Peter Lanjouw: India: inequality trends and dynamic: From manufacturing-led export growth to a twenty-first century inclusive growth strategy: explaining the demise of a successful growth model and what to do about it s, the bird's-eye and the granular perspectives8: Raymundo Campos-Vazquez, Nora Lustig, and John Scott: Mexico: labour markets and fiscal redistribution 1989-20149: Murray Leibbrandt, Vimal Ranchhod, and Pippa Green: South Africa: the top-end, labour markets, fiscal redistribution and the persistence of very high inequalityPART IV: INEQUALITY IN A BROADER CONTEXT10: Andrew Clark and Conchita D'Ambrosio: Economic inequality and subjective wellbeing across the world11: Roy van der Weide and Ambar Narayan: China versus the United States: different economic models but similarly low levels of socioeconomic mobility12: Joseph E. Stiglitz: From manufacturing-led export growth to a twenty-first century inclusive growth strategy: explaining the demise of a successful growth model and what to do about itPART V: SYNTHESIS AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS13: Carlos Gradín, Murray Leibbrandt, and Finn Tarp: Synthesis and policy implications

By bringing together this superb group of authors and deploying their considerable talents to key questions about how and why inequality is changing in some of the world's largest countries — as well as globally — the editors of this volume have done us a tremendous service. In my endorsement of the book, I called it a "must-read" volume and I stand by that assessment. I particularly enjoyed the combination of the three "big-picture" chapters at the outset with the five detailed country studies that follow.