ABSTRACT
In this chapter, authors first update our 1983 work by extending the period of analysis up to 1986, thus including the most severe and long-lasting world economic crisis since the Second World War. Second, they investigate the relative roles of economic and demographic factors in explaining the evolution of world income distribution. In particular, an unambiguous improvement in world distribution would take place with a demographic slowdown if the population elasticity of gross domestic product (GNP) were small enough. The worsening of the world distribution of income is even more pronounced when individual incomes are approximated by consumption expenditures rather than by GNP per capita. The complexity of the role of demographic growth in shaping the evolution of the world income distribution is well illustrated by the simple growth rates. The distribution of income and the level of world inequality depend on population size of various countries and on level of their per capita income relative to the world average.
