About the project

Brief project description

The LNRI Project is an ongoing initiative to provide open and convenient access to an international database of micro statistics on regional income inequality. All statistics are obtained from administrative data on labor and capital incomes collected from social security records, personal income tax returns and/or population censuses. For comparison, the data from each country are harmonized.

Countries included

At present, there are 5 countries in LNRI: Canada, France, Germany, UK, and US. The project aims to augment the countries included in the immediate next years.

Highly detailed statistics on income inequality across regions

The detailed measurement of income inequality indicators for narrowly defined regions is made possible by the huge sample sizes of the micro datasets used.

Comparable geographical units

The project overcomes a frequent limit in previous studies: the lack of similarly-defined economic regions across countries. Regional units are defined as local labor markets (i.e., areas where individuals work and reside) following similar concepts across countries.

Comparable income concepts

The project combines various administrative data sources to account for trends in spatial inequality, incorporating the role of all income sources (i.e., self-employed income and capital income).

Adjusting for local costs of living

Variation in living costs within countries varies substantially. To properly compare the evolution of incomes across the space, the project constructs local consumer price indexes, accounting for trends in spatial inequality adjusted for differing regional living costs.

Key research questions

- Are regional income inequalities high or low?

- How have spatial inequalities evolved through time?

- How do regional inequalities contribute to national inequality?

- Does it matter if we only look at wages vs. other income sources?

- What drives regional income inequalities?