WORLD
INEQUALITY LAB - REPORTS AND INDICES
News:
India’s top 1% income,
wealth shares have reached historical highs: World Inequality Lab
What's
in the news?
●
According to a paper released by the World
Inequality Lab, the share of income and
wealth of India’s top 1% at 22.6% and 40.1% respectively is at their
highest historical levels in 2022-23.
Key
Takeaways from the Working Paper Published by the WIL:
Researchers
Involved:
●
The working paper by four economics
researchers – Nitin Kumar Bharti, Lucas Chancel, Thomas Piketty, and Anmol
Somanchi – has created time series data on income and wealth inequality in
India.
Billionaire
Raj:
●
Naming the paper, the “Billionaire Raj”,
the authors claimed that the country was now more unequal than even the British
Raj.
Key
Findings:
Top
1% - Super Rich:
●
As per the report, in the year 2022-23,
top 1% income and wealth shares were at their highest ever historical levels in
India - 22.6% and 40.1%.
●
India’s
top 1% income share is among the very highest in the world, higher than even
South Africa, Brazil, and the US, the paper said.
●
The wealth share of the top 1% was lesser
in India than in two of these countries - South Africa and Brazil.
Disparity
Among Different Income Groups:
●
According to the paper, the top 1% holds an average of Rs 5.4 crore in
wealth, 40 times the average Indian.
●
However, the bottom 50% and the middle 40%
hold Rs 1.7 lakh (0.1 times national average) and Rs 9.6 lakh (0.7 times
national average) respectively.
●
Key
Suggestions in the Working Paper:
Estimates
from Multiple Sources:
●
The paper has used multiple sources to
build its income and wealth inequality estimates.
●
India
does not have official income estimates and survey based official statistics on
wealth.
Policy
Recommendations:
●
The paper recommends multiple policy
measures to address the problem of inequality in India.
●
They include restructuring of the tax code to account for both income and
wealth, and broad-based public investments in health, education and nutrition.
Imposition
of Super Tax:
●
The report said a “super tax” of 2% on the net wealth of the 167 wealthiest families
in 2022-23 would yield 0.5% of national income in revenues.
Benefit
of Super Tax:
●
It would also create valuable fiscal space
to facilitate such investments, besides serving as a tool to fight inequality.
Go
back to basics:
World
Inequality Lab:
●
The World Inequality Lab (WIL) is a
research facility of the Paris School of Economics.
Objective:
●
To foster research in global inequality dynamics.
Collaboration:
●
It collaborates closely with a wide
international network of scholars (more than 100 researchers from almost 70
countries) who contribute to the database.
World
Inequality Report:
●
The report is released by Paris-based
World Inequality Lab, a global research initiative.
Income
Inequality:
●
Income inequality refers to how unevenly income is distributed in a
population.
●
The less equal the distribution, the
greater the income inequality.