June 3, 2024
Written by WID.world

New Macro Update

What’s new in the World Inequality Database?

The World Inequality Lab released its 2024 macro update with new series on:

  • Update of the macro series to 2023,
  • General government expenditure in all countries in the world since 1980, including:
    • The level and composition of public spending by function of government, with a particular focus on education, healthcare, and social protection,
    • General government revenue and its composition,
    • Debt service cost and government primary budget balance
  • Foreign wealth and capital income in all countries since 1970.

 

Why it matters?

Despite severe limitations in some countries,  the general government expenditure data opens new avenues for studying the evolution of the size of governments and the role of public spending in reducing poverty and inequality, as developed in Gethin (2023), and for constructing comparable estimates of post-tax income inequality, as developed in Fisher-Post and Gethin (2023).

The foreign wealth and capital income data allows to check the balance of payments and international investment position –  i.e which country has the highest/lowest net foreign liabilities and net foreign assets – as used in Nievas and Sodano (2024).

Further analysis and country rankings will be published later this year. To stay informed, subscribe to our newsletter here.

 

More about the methodology

 

 

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