Five Principles for Moving Forward

Abstract

The introduction gives a statistical overview of inequality and some related aspects in Europe and the United States over the past couple decades. As might be expected in dynamic economies, inequality levels have fluctuated and these changes are primarily the result of long and short-term trends within a country. Furthermore, the Gini coefficient and the P90/P10 index are measures, not diagnostic tools, and while they are useful indicators of a country’s inequality level, they of course cannot reveal underlying causes which are complex and vary across countries and time.