Seminar on reconciliation of information sources for the measurement of income distribution

Inequality is one of the outstanding features of Latin American societies and overcoming it is a key challenge for development. Household surveys, the main source for measuring income inequality, may be affected by the lack of information on households with very high incomes, as well as by possible under-reporting of income. As a result, measures of inequality based exclusively on this source of information may underestimate the magnitude of the phenomenon.

To capture income inequality more fully, it is possible to combine information from household surveys with information from income tax records, especially relevant for higher income earners, and with national accounts, which provide a frame of reference on the total amount of national gross income that is distributed to households.

ECLAC Statistics Division implements the project "Inequality: Innovative approaches for examining inequality through integration of different data sources in Latin America and the Caribbean", with the support of the United Nations Development Account (13th tranche). The project addresses the possible integration of income data from household surveys, tax records and national accounts, to produce estimates of income inequality.

Objectives

• Review the progress in the incorporation of distributive elements in the SNA 2025
• Learn about the methodologies to measure inequality by combining data from surveys, tax records and National Accounts
• Analyze the challenges for the production of household accounts and their timely updating
• Identify the usefulness of income tax data for measuring inequality
• Discuss possible areas for improvement