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The Standardized World Income Inequality Database*
Author(s) -
Solt Frederick
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
social science quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.482
H-Index - 90
eISSN - 1540-6237
pISSN - 0038-4941
DOI - 10.1111/ssqu.12295
Subject(s) - comparability , inequality , economic inequality , database , income inequality metrics , income distribution , economics , econometrics , computer science , mathematics , mathematical analysis , combinatorics
Objective Since 2008, the Standardized World Income Inequality Database (SWIID) has provided income inequality data that seek to maximize comparability while providing the broadest possible coverage of countries and years. This article describes the current SWIID's construction, highlighting differences from its original version, and reevaluates the SWIID's utility to cross‐national income inequality research in light of recently available alternatives. Methods Coverage of inequality data sets is assessed across country‐years; comparability is evaluated in terms of success in predicting the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS), recognized in the field as the gold standard in comparability, before those data are released. Results The SWIID offers coverage double that of the next largest income inequality data set, and its record of comparability is three to eight times better than those of alternate data sets. Conclusions As its coverage and comparability far exceed those of the alternatives, the SWIID remains better suited for broadly cross‐national research on income inequality than other available sources.