How widely are the benefits of economic growth shared in advanced societies? Do the rich capture the gains of growth, with little or no improvement in the living standards of the middle? Is growth raising the incomes of the poor so that they keep pace with the middle, or is the gap between rich and poor closing? Addressing these questions requires careful analysis of both the growth and distributional aspects of incomes. This article looks at the growth of disposable incomes – incomes after the redistribution through the state – over time. We rely on the Incomes across the Distribution Database put together by researchers Brian Nolan, Stefan Thewissen, and Max Roser. This data set is directly available for download: Data and data description.

The data source for our database is the microdata published by the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) Database. You can also access our database via the website of the LIS: Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.

Changing living standards