Original text - English - 1. Introduction There is currently a great deal...

1. Introduction
There is currently a great deal of interest in the world distribution of income, as
evidenced by the wide popular debate and by many academic articles (see the recent survey by
Anand and Segal, 2008). People are keen to know whether world inequality is growing or
declining. They want to monitor progress towards the eradication of world poverty, as in the
UN Millennium Development Goals.