Abstract
Professor Stephen Jenkins (this issue) has conducted an extremely careful and insightful analysis of two datasets, WIID and SWIID. In this short response, we focus on his review of the WIID, maintained and published by UNU-WIDER in agreement with the World Bank. We wish to highlight at the outset that we are very grateful for Professor Jenkins’ expert advice and suggestions; and note that the WIID has over the past couple of years been developed in the direction recommended in the appraisal. This response provides, first, some background to the development and basic philosophy of the WIID, with particular attention to data comparability and proper documentation. We subsequently outline the recent changes made to the database, now available on the internet as the revised version WIID3.0b.1 Finally, we offer some brief concluding remarks.
Highlights
This response provides, first, some background to the development and basic philosophy of the WIID, with particular attention to data comparability and proper documentation
The philosophy underlying the preparation of WIID2 was to gather income inequality indices for as many countries and years as possible
WIID values may have been calculated on the basis of the full population or using a subset only, or they may rely on different equivalence scales
Summary
The WIID was initially assembled in 1997–99 for the UNU-WIDER-UNDP project ‘Rising Income Inequality and Poverty Reduction: Are They Compatible?’ directed by Professor Giovanni Andrea Cornia, the Director of UNU-WIDER. The philosophy underlying the preparation of WIID2 was to gather income inequality indices (the Gini index and quintile shares) for as many countries and years as possible This was done being cognizant of the fact that observations in a secondary database such as the WIID will originate from different sources and refer to a variety of income and population concepts, sample sizes and statistical methods. This implies that when crosscountry comparisons of income inequality are made by analysts, the series relied on must be carefully selected so they are comparable Sometimes this is not possible: for example for the majority of developing countries, all Gini values are calculated on the basis of consumption, and these should not be compared with market/gross income inequality in developed countries. The documentation of WIID2 explicitly encouraged the users to do so; and we have further emphasized this point in the documentation of the latest version of the data, WIID3.0b
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