Session 1.  Inequality of What, and Amongst Whom?

• • Transparencies for Session 1
  • Transparencies for Session 2
  • Transparencies for Session 3
  • Transparencies for Session 4
       
• S. Yitzhaki, More Than A Dozen Alternative Ways of Spelling Gini. As the title says, different (and often original) Gini derivations.
• F. Coulter, F. Cowell, S. Jenkins, Equivalence Scale Relativities and the Extent of Inequality and Poverty. Shows U-shaped movement of inequality and poverty measures as equivalence scales increase.
• R. Kanbur, Income Distribution and Development. A grand review of post-War literature.
• S. Jenkins and S. Cowell, Parametric Equivalence Scales and Scale Relativities. Compares different equivalence scales (economies of size and cost of children) and places them in a single framework.
• P. Lanjouw, B. Milanovic, S. Paternostro, Economies of Scale and Poverty: The Impact of Relative Price Shifts during Economic Transition.   Develops a methodology showing how equivalence scales vary with relative prices, and considers the effects on poverty calculations.

Session 2.  Measurement of Inequality

• P. Lambert and R. Aranson, Inequality Decomposition analysis and the Gini Coefficient Revisited. Does Gini decomposition and shows why the overlap term may be useful.
• G. Pyatt, On Interpretation and Decomposition of Gini Coefficients.Classic Gini decomposition (by recipients). Beautiful use of matrix algebra.
• F. Cowell, Measurement of Inequality Prelude to a book with the same title. Vast coverage of measurement issues often couched in (unfortunately) hermetic language and math (check Cowell's website too).
• B. Milanovic, A Simple Way to Calculate the Gini Coefficient, and Some Implications. A simplest (is it?) way to calculate the Gini.

Session 3.  What Determines Inequality?

• P. Lindert, When did inequality rise in Britain and America? A long-run description of inequality changes in the UK and the US. Relevant for the Kuznets hypothesis debate.
• M. Higgins and J. Williamson, Explaining Inequality the World Round: Cohort Size, Kuznets Curves, and Openness. Considers a "weaker" Kuznets hypothesis, augmented with other explanatory variables (population structure), and economic openness. Large working-age population reduces inequality, openness unclear.
• B. Milanovic,  Determinants of Cross-country Income Inequality: An "Augumented" Kuznets Hypothesis  "Augments" Kuznets hypothesis with social choice variables (social transfers as share of GDP and state-sector employment as share of total ). Both drive inequality down.
• H. Li, L. Squire, H. Zou, Explaining International and Intertemporal variation in Income Inequality. Inequality depends on the ease of access to loans (financial depth), democracy, education, and land distribution. Reject Kuznets hypothesis.
• M. Szekely and M. Hilgert, What's behind the Inequality We Measure: an Investigation using Latin American Data. Shows that behind the Ginis we use are vastly different surveys, population structures, definitions of incomes and expenditures.

Session 4.  How Do Macrovariables Influence Inequality?

• A. Bulir, Income Inequality: Does Inflation Matter? Includes inflation in addition to social choice variables, and shows that, for poor countries, it matters a lot (increasing inequality).
• B. Milanovic, Explaining the Increase in Inequality during the Transition. Shows that increase in inequality was driven mostly by rising inequality in wages.
• B. Milanovic, The Median-voter Hypothesis, Income Inequality, and Income Redistribution: An Empirical Test with the Required Data. More factor unequal countries redistribute more (as we would expect from the median voter hypothesis), but the middle class does not gain much, or anything.
• Cristina Romer and David Romer, Monetary Policy and the Well Being of the Poor