Top Incomes and the Measurement of Inequality in Egypt
By all accounts, income inequality in Egypt is low and had been declining during the decade that preceded the 2011 revolution. As the Egyptian revolution was partly motivated by claims of social injustice and inequalities, this seems at odds with a...
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| Format: | Policy Research Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
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World Bank, Washington, D.C.
2013
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2013/08/18089005/top-incomes-measurement-inequality-egypt http://hdl.handle.net/10986/15924 |
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okr-10986-159242021-04-23T14:03:26Z Top Incomes and the Measurement of Inequality in Egypt Hlasny, Vladimir Verme, Paolo AGGREGATE INCOME AVERAGE INCOME BENCHMARK CASH TRANSFERS COUNTERFACTUAL DATA QUALITY DATA SET DEVELOPING COUNTRIES DEVELOPMENT POLICY DISTRIBUTION FUNCTION DISTRIBUTION OF INCOME DIVIDENDS EARNING ECONOMETRICS ECONOMIC INEQUALITY ECONOMIC REVIEW ECONOMIC STUDIES EMPIRICAL PURPOSES EMPIRICAL SECTION EXPECTED VALUE EXPLANATORY POWER EXPLANATORY VARIABLES FUNCTIONAL FORM GDP GDP PER CAPITA GINI COEFFICIENT GINI INDEX GROWTH RATES HIGH INCOMES HOUSEHOLD BUDGET HOUSEHOLD CONSUMPTION HOUSEHOLD DATA HOUSEHOLD INCOME HOUSEHOLD SIZE HOUSEHOLD SURVEY HOUSEHOLD SURVEY DATA HOUSEHOLD SURVEYS HUMAN DEVELOPMENT INCOME INCOME BIAS INCOME DATA INCOME DISTRIBUTION INCOME GROWTH INCOME INEQUALITY INCOME LEVELS INCOME SHARES INCOMES INEQUALITY INEQUALITY ESTIMATES INEQUALITY MEASURE INEQUALITY MEASUREMENT LINEAR MODEL LORENZ CURVE LORENZ CURVES LOW INCOME MEAN INCOME MEAN INCOMES MEASURES OF POVERTY MEASURING INEQUALITY MEASURING POVERTY NEGATIVE RELATIONSHIP POLICY DISCUSSIONS POLICY IMPLICATIONS POLICY RESEARCH POOR POVERTY MEASUREMENT POVERTY MEASURES POVERTY REDUCTION PRIMARY SAMPLING UNITS PSU RANDOM SAMPLING RELATIVE IMPORTANCE RURAL RURAL AREAS RURAL RESIDENTS SALARIES SAVINGS SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS WAGES WEALTH By all accounts, income inequality in Egypt is low and had been declining during the decade that preceded the 2011 revolution. As the Egyptian revolution was partly motivated by claims of social injustice and inequalities, this seems at odds with a low level of income inequality. Moreover, while income inequality shows a decline between 2000 and 2009, the World Values Surveys indicate that the aversion to inequality has significantly increased during the same period and for all social groups. This paper utilizes a range of recently developed statistical techniques to assess the true value of income inequality in the presence of a range of possible measurement issues related to top incomes, including item and unit non-response, outliers and extreme observations, and atypical top income distributions. The analysis finds that correcting for unit non-response significantly increases the estimate of inequality by just over 1 percentage point, that the Egyptian distribution of top incomes follows rather closely the Pareto distribution, and that the inverted Pareto coefficient is located around median values when compared with 418 household surveys worldwide. Hence, income inequality in Egypt is confirmed to be low while the distribution of top incomes is not atypical compared with what Pareto had predicted and compared with other countries in the world. This would suggest that the increased frustration with income inequality voiced by Egyptians and measured by the World Values Surveys is driven by factors other than income inequality. 2013-09-27T20:45:06Z 2013-09-27T20:45:06Z 2013-08 http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2013/08/18089005/top-incomes-measurement-inequality-egypt http://hdl.handle.net/10986/15924 English en_US Policy Research Working Paper;No.6557 CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo/ World Bank World Bank, Washington, D.C. Publications & Research :: Policy Research Working Paper Publications & Research Middle East and North Africa Egypt, Arab Republic of |
| repository_type |
Digital Repository |
| institution_category |
Foreign Institution |
| institution |
Digital Repositories |
| building |
World Bank Open Knowledge Repository |
| collection |
World Bank |
| language |
English en_US |
| topic |
AGGREGATE INCOME AVERAGE INCOME BENCHMARK CASH TRANSFERS COUNTERFACTUAL DATA QUALITY DATA SET DEVELOPING COUNTRIES DEVELOPMENT POLICY DISTRIBUTION FUNCTION DISTRIBUTION OF INCOME DIVIDENDS EARNING ECONOMETRICS ECONOMIC INEQUALITY ECONOMIC REVIEW ECONOMIC STUDIES EMPIRICAL PURPOSES EMPIRICAL SECTION EXPECTED VALUE EXPLANATORY POWER EXPLANATORY VARIABLES FUNCTIONAL FORM GDP GDP PER CAPITA GINI COEFFICIENT GINI INDEX GROWTH RATES HIGH INCOMES HOUSEHOLD BUDGET HOUSEHOLD CONSUMPTION HOUSEHOLD DATA HOUSEHOLD INCOME HOUSEHOLD SIZE HOUSEHOLD SURVEY HOUSEHOLD SURVEY DATA HOUSEHOLD SURVEYS HUMAN DEVELOPMENT INCOME INCOME BIAS INCOME DATA INCOME DISTRIBUTION INCOME GROWTH INCOME INEQUALITY INCOME LEVELS INCOME SHARES INCOMES INEQUALITY INEQUALITY ESTIMATES INEQUALITY MEASURE INEQUALITY MEASUREMENT LINEAR MODEL LORENZ CURVE LORENZ CURVES LOW INCOME MEAN INCOME MEAN INCOMES MEASURES OF POVERTY MEASURING INEQUALITY MEASURING POVERTY NEGATIVE RELATIONSHIP POLICY DISCUSSIONS POLICY IMPLICATIONS POLICY RESEARCH POOR POVERTY MEASUREMENT POVERTY MEASURES POVERTY REDUCTION PRIMARY SAMPLING UNITS PSU RANDOM SAMPLING RELATIVE IMPORTANCE RURAL RURAL AREAS RURAL RESIDENTS SALARIES SAVINGS SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS WAGES WEALTH |
| spellingShingle |
AGGREGATE INCOME AVERAGE INCOME BENCHMARK CASH TRANSFERS COUNTERFACTUAL DATA QUALITY DATA SET DEVELOPING COUNTRIES DEVELOPMENT POLICY DISTRIBUTION FUNCTION DISTRIBUTION OF INCOME DIVIDENDS EARNING ECONOMETRICS ECONOMIC INEQUALITY ECONOMIC REVIEW ECONOMIC STUDIES EMPIRICAL PURPOSES EMPIRICAL SECTION EXPECTED VALUE EXPLANATORY POWER EXPLANATORY VARIABLES FUNCTIONAL FORM GDP GDP PER CAPITA GINI COEFFICIENT GINI INDEX GROWTH RATES HIGH INCOMES HOUSEHOLD BUDGET HOUSEHOLD CONSUMPTION HOUSEHOLD DATA HOUSEHOLD INCOME HOUSEHOLD SIZE HOUSEHOLD SURVEY HOUSEHOLD SURVEY DATA HOUSEHOLD SURVEYS HUMAN DEVELOPMENT INCOME INCOME BIAS INCOME DATA INCOME DISTRIBUTION INCOME GROWTH INCOME INEQUALITY INCOME LEVELS INCOME SHARES INCOMES INEQUALITY INEQUALITY ESTIMATES INEQUALITY MEASURE INEQUALITY MEASUREMENT LINEAR MODEL LORENZ CURVE LORENZ CURVES LOW INCOME MEAN INCOME MEAN INCOMES MEASURES OF POVERTY MEASURING INEQUALITY MEASURING POVERTY NEGATIVE RELATIONSHIP POLICY DISCUSSIONS POLICY IMPLICATIONS POLICY RESEARCH POOR POVERTY MEASUREMENT POVERTY MEASURES POVERTY REDUCTION PRIMARY SAMPLING UNITS PSU RANDOM SAMPLING RELATIVE IMPORTANCE RURAL RURAL AREAS RURAL RESIDENTS SALARIES SAVINGS SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS WAGES WEALTH Hlasny, Vladimir Verme, Paolo Top Incomes and the Measurement of Inequality in Egypt |
| geographic_facet |
Middle East and North Africa Egypt, Arab Republic of |
| relation |
Policy Research Working Paper;No.6557 |
| description |
By all accounts, income inequality in
Egypt is low and had been declining during the decade that
preceded the 2011 revolution. As the Egyptian revolution was
partly motivated by claims of social injustice and
inequalities, this seems at odds with a low level of income
inequality. Moreover, while income inequality shows a
decline between 2000 and 2009, the World Values Surveys
indicate that the aversion to inequality has significantly
increased during the same period and for all social groups.
This paper utilizes a range of recently developed
statistical techniques to assess the true value of income
inequality in the presence of a range of possible
measurement issues related to top incomes, including item
and unit non-response, outliers and extreme observations,
and atypical top income distributions. The analysis finds
that correcting for unit non-response significantly
increases the estimate of inequality by just over 1
percentage point, that the Egyptian distribution of top
incomes follows rather closely the Pareto distribution, and
that the inverted Pareto coefficient is located around
median values when compared with 418 household surveys
worldwide. Hence, income inequality in Egypt is confirmed to
be low while the distribution of top incomes is not atypical
compared with what Pareto had predicted and compared with
other countries in the world. This would suggest that the
increased frustration with income inequality voiced by
Egyptians and measured by the World Values Surveys is driven
by factors other than income inequality. |
| format |
Publications & Research :: Policy Research Working Paper |
| author |
Hlasny, Vladimir Verme, Paolo |
| author_facet |
Hlasny, Vladimir Verme, Paolo |
| author_sort |
Hlasny, Vladimir |
| title |
Top Incomes and the Measurement of Inequality in Egypt |
| title_short |
Top Incomes and the Measurement of Inequality in Egypt |
| title_full |
Top Incomes and the Measurement of Inequality in Egypt |
| title_fullStr |
Top Incomes and the Measurement of Inequality in Egypt |
| title_full_unstemmed |
Top Incomes and the Measurement of Inequality in Egypt |
| title_sort |
top incomes and the measurement of inequality in egypt |
| publisher |
World Bank, Washington, D.C. |
| publishDate |
2013 |
| url |
http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2013/08/18089005/top-incomes-measurement-inequality-egypt http://hdl.handle.net/10986/15924 |
| _version_ |
1764431955899711488 |