Global Income Inequality, c1880-1960

这个项目将根据家庭支出调查的结果，计算从十九世纪末到1960年代期间世界不平等的新估计数。目前的共识是，所有工业革命后世界公民之间不平等的加剧都发生在1950年之前。这一结论在很大程度上是根据对从国民核算中得出的全球不平等衡量标准以及各种代理衡量标准的分析得出的。这个项目采用了一种不同的方法。我们计划使用更好的家庭层面数据来调查这一时期的不平等。世界银行（World Bank）等机构主张，利用家庭调查的证据，根据生活成本差异进行适当调整，来调查不平等现象。在1950年以前的期间，一般没有在全球一级进行这项工作，可能是因为尚未充分了解可收回的家庭支出调查证据的范围。我们的调查发现了这一时期大量的家庭支出调查。到目前为止，我们已经确定了来自世界各地的大约800个家庭调查，这些调查是在19世纪80年代到60年代之间进行的，其中大约381个范围足够大，可能对不平等的调查有用。这些调查的地理分布确实是全球性的：71个来自西欧；东欧10个；中南美洲53人；非洲和加勒比地区37人；亚洲88人；7名来自中东，110名来自北美，5名来自澳大利亚和波利尼西亚。我们将从这些报告中提取按收入群体划分的人口统计和支出数据，并用它们来估计收入分布的参数。利用这些估计，我们将研究一些关键民族国家内不平等的变化性质，并研究1880-1960年全球不平等的时间路径和地理。此外，我们将使用这些数据来估计生活条件的其他指标，如营养状况，这可能为工业化对不平等的影响提供进一步的见解。本提案中概述的研究可能会改变我们对20世纪上半叶全球生活水平历史的理解，以及对长期经济增长的分配后果的理解。同样，它也有可能改变我们对旨在减少不平等的政策的理解。该项目还将留下一组具有重大潜力供将来使用的数据集。

This project will calculate new estimates of world inequality in the period from the end of the nineteenth century until the 1960s, based on the results of household expenditure surveys. The current consensus is that all of the post-industrial revolution increase in inequality amongst world citizens occurred before about 1950. This conclusion has largely been reached on the basis of the analysis of global measures of inequality derived from the national accounts in conjunction with various proxy measures. This project takes a different approach. We plan to investigate inequality in this period using much better, household level, data. There are strong arguments, advocated by the World Bank among others, for investigating inequality using evidence from household surveys suitably adjusted for cost of living differences. This has not generally been carried out for the pre-1950 period at a global level, possibly because the extent of recoverable household expenditure survey evidence has not been fully appreciated. Our investigations have located a vast cache of household expenditure surveys for the period. Thus far, we have identified around 800 household surveys from around the world, carried out between the 1880s and 1960s, of which around 381 are of sufficient scope as to be potentially useful for the investigation of inequality. The geographical spread of these surveys is truly global: 71 from Western Europe; 10 from Eastern Europe; 53 from South and Central America; 37 from Africa and the Caribbean; 88 from Asia; 7 from the Middle East, 110 from North America and 5 from Australia and Polynesia.We will extract the reported demographic and expenditure data by income group from these reports and use them to estimate parameters of the income distribution. Using these estimates, we will investigate the changing nature of inequality within a number of key nation states, and also investigate the time path and geography of global inequality 1880-1960. In addition, we would use these data to estimate other indicators of living conditions, such as nutritional attainment, which may provide further insights into the impact of industrialisation on inequality. The research outlined in this proposal is likely to transform our understanding of the history of global living standards during the first half of the twentieth century and the distributional consequences of long-term economic growth. It has the potential, equally, to transform our understanding of policy designed to reduce inequality. The project will also bequeath a collection of data-sets with significant potential for future use.