Using the most recent data available on WID.world to estimate inequality for the African continent, three main results are worth highlighting:

• First, the analysis confirms that inequality levels in the African region are extremely high, with average country-level top 10% income shares estimated at 50%.
• Second, we show a clear North-South gradient of increasing inequality across the continent, which reflects both the situation at Independence and the political economy and institutions that followed.
• Third, inequality levels seem to have changed very little on average over the last decades but contrasted dynamics are observed at the sub-regional level. These dynamics remain to be investigated.

Anne-Sophie Robilliard is a Research Fellow at the Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development) and works at World Inequality Lab (Paris School of Economics, France) where she acts as Africa coordinator. Her research work focuses on developing countries, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Date
Monday, 15 March – 1.00 to 2.00pm (CET)

Registration
You can register on our website until Saturday, 13 March. The link to the meeting will be sent by email the day before the seminar.