Standardizing the World Income Inequality Database

Objective. Cross-national research on the causes and consequences of income inequality has been hindered by the limitations of existing inequality data sets: greater coverage across countries and over time is available from these sources only at the cost of significantly reduced comparability across...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Social science quarterly 2009-06, Vol.90 (2), p.231-242
Main Author:	Solt, Frederick
Format:	Article
Language:	eng
Subjects:	Algorithms Certainty Comparative Analysis Correlations Countries Cross-national analysis Crosscultural Differences Crossnational Differences Datasets Economic sociology Gini coefficient Gross domestic product Gross income History, theory and methodology Income Inequality Indexes (Measures) Information science Methodological Problems Methodology Net income Observational research Of General Interest Political Economy Social sciences Socioeconomic factors Sociology Sociology of economy and development Standard error Standard of living. Income Statistics Studies
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Summary:	Objective. Cross-national research on the causes and consequences of income inequality has been hindered by the limitations of existing inequality data sets: greater coverage across countries and over time is available from these sources only at the cost of significantly reduced comparability across observations. The goal of the Standardized World Income Inequality Database (SWIID) is to overcome these limitations. Methods. A custom missing-data algorithm was used to standardize the U.N. University's World Income Inequality Database; data collected by the Luxembourg Income Study served as the standard. Results. The SWIID provides comparable Gini indices of gross and net income inequality for 153 countries for as many years as possible from 1960 to the present, along with estimates of uncertainty in these statistics. Conclusions. By maximizing comparability for the largest possible sample of countries and years, the SWIID is better suited to broad cross-national research on income inequality than previously available sources.
ISSN:	0038-4941 1540-6237