For Bangladesh and your country (the same one that you used for Assignment 1) collect and tabulate the following data using the website http://databank.worldbank.org/. Chart can be taken directly from the world bank website.
1. Per capita GNP and growth rate (from assignment 1)
2. Income distribution in quintiles
3. Gini coefficient or index.
4. % of population below the absolute poverty line. (choose PPP$1.25 or PPP$2)
5. A measure of the poverty gap for the poverty line chosen above.
Use the data collected and additional data as needed to answer the following questions.
1. How is your country faring compared to other countries in the world? Would you consider inequality of income distribution in your country to be amongst the worst in the world? The best? Or just about average?
2. Based on the income level in your country, is the distribution of income as would be expected according to the Kuznets’ Inverted U hypothesis?
3. Plot the Lorenz curve for both countries on the same graph. Be sure to label each axis and all the points on the graph.
4. Which country is poorer? What does the poverty gap tell us about the two countries?
References: Data on Poverty and income distribution is available in the World Development Indicators database. Since the availability of this data varies extensively by country, you may have to search from the 1990s to get this data. The most recent year available for Bangladesh is 2010. Make sure you increase the precision of your data to include upto two decimal places – poverty in some countries may be low.
Additional Income distribution data can be found on PovcalNet at http://iresearch.worldbank.org/povcalnet/.
Or at
http://www.wider.unu.edu/research/Database/en_GB/database/