Income and its distribution

Income and its distribution

As Nobel prize-winning economist Amartya Sen and others emphasize, poverty is about more than income. But income is central. Practically all other dimensions of human misery are, or can be, made more bearable through money.


It is striking, however, how little income distribution within countries seems to have changed during the last 50 years, including recent "globalization years." This is depressing because in most developing countries, income is distributed very unequally — and much more so than in virtually any industrialized country.