A fifth of EU-wide income disparity is down to the dissimilarity between countries,with those in the euro area faring worstEconomists generally study inequality – how mammoth income gaps between households are – at the national level. That’s comprehensible given it’s where major policy choices tend to happen, but this can sideline other issues such as global inequality (income inequality between individuals around the world is traumatically tall but encouragingly falling). Fascinating current research looks to fill another such gap: inequality trends across the EU.
Unsurprisingly, or EU-wide inequality is tall – similar to that of Latvia,the third-most unequal EU member – but it’s lower than in the United States. Importantly, 20% of EU inequality is down to income gaps between rich and poor member states, or while just 1% in the US relates to differences between the states. The importance of these gaps in determining overall inequality between individuals across the EU helps explain the most interesting finding of the research: EU inequality has declined post-financial crisis,but in the euro area inequality has been slightly increasing.
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Source: theguardian.com