Gini For Various Nations

This table shows recent entries from the data reported here.

Nation Gini Year
Austria 23.7 2001
Sweden 25.7 2002
Netherlands 25.8 2001
Bosnia and Herzegovina 26.1 2001
Luxembourg 26.6 2001
Hungary 26.7 2002
Slovak Republic 26.7 2002
France 27.0 2002
Czech Republic 27.3 2002
Germany 28.0 2003
Albania 28.1 2002
Ireland 28.9 2001
Belgium 29.3 2001
Ethiopia 29.7 2000
Finland 30.3 2003
Slovenia 30.7 2002
Australia 30.9 2002
Croatia 31.0 2001
Switzerland 31.1 2002
Kazakhstan 31.3 2001
Bangladesh 31.7 2000
Greece 32.3 2001
Macedonia, FYR 33.2 2002
Taiwan 33.9 2003
Indonesia 34.1 2002
Belarus 34.2 2002
Spain 34.6 2002
United Kingdom 35.0 2003
Poland 35.3 2002
Estonia 35.5 2003
Latvia 35.8 2002
Armenia 35.9 2002
Italy 36.4 2002
Canada 36.5 2000
Tanzania 36.7 2001
Bulgaria 37.0 2002
Norway 37.0 2002
Portugal 37.1 2001
Egypt 37.8 2000
Serbia and Montenegro 37.8 2001
Jamaica 38.6 2000
Israel 38.9 2001
Denmark 39.0 2002
Lithuania 39.0 2002
Mauritania 39.0 2000
Romania 39.1 2002
Turkey 39.8 2000
Tunisia 40.6 2000
Ukraine 41.8 2002
Thailand 42.7 2001
Moldova 43.6 2002
Cameroon 44.2 2001
Uruguay 44.5 2000
China 44.9 2003
Georgia 45.4 2002
Venezuela 45.8 2000
United States 46.4 2003
Sri Lanka 46.9 2002
Madagascar 47.4 2001
Singapore 48.1 2000
Uzbekistan 48.1 2001
Kyrgyz Republic 49.0 2002
Russian Federation 49.1 2002
Peru 49.3 2000
Philippines 49.5 2000
Costa Rica 50.1 2000
Azerbaijan 50.8 2002
Mexico 51.1 2002
Argentina 52.3 2001
El Salvador 53.8 2000
Nicaragua 54.2 2001
Uganda 54.6 2000
Ecuador 56.0 2000
Colombia 57.4 2000
Panama 57.8 2000
Chile 59.5 2000
Guatemala 59.8 2000
Brazil 61.2 2001
Bolivia 63.3 2000

Gini is a metric of wealth inequality. Wikipedia has a description though the curves it shows are more symetric than the real world distribution. Gini is a percentage. In a nation with perfectly equitable distribution of income it is zero and in a nation where one household controls all the wealth it is 100. It is the percentage of the income dollars (or what ever) shifted from lower to higher incomes.

Good practice demands that this table be taken with a great deal of care. The methods used to sample the populations of the various countries are so diverse and the quality of the samples taken vary widely. There is a very good overview of how hard it is to get good data like this in the discussion materials that come with the data here.

It amazes me that a statistic so central to economic analysis can be so hard to find.

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