1. Understanding Poverty
  2. Topics

LAC Equity Lab: Shared Prosperity - Bottom 40 Characteristics

The main indicator used to measure shared prosperity is the growth in the real per capita income of the bottom 40 percent of the income distribution. This dashboard shows the differences in socio-economic characteristics between the bottom 40 percent and the top 60 percent of the income distribution for LAC countries. Despite significant improvements over the last decade, important gaps remain between these two groups. In addition, the dashboard also shows the characteristics by poverty condition, vulnerability or middle-class.


Growth Bottom 40: The indicator to monitor shared prosperity is the growth in real per capita income (or consumption) of the bottom 40 percent of the income (or consumption) distribution in a country.

Shared Prosperity Convergence Index (SPCI): The SPCI measures the gap between Sen’s Welfare Index (GDP per capita adjusted by income inequality) for any given country with respect to the average Sen's index of the top ten global performers. The SPCI proposed is based on the Sen’s Welfare Index (Sen 1976), which is calculated as the mean income (y) times one minus the Gini coefficient (G), that is, SPCI=y(G-1). The benchmark for Sen’s Welfare Index is 23,535 (equity-adjusted per capita GDP per year, PPP 2005), derived from the population-weighted average of Sen’s Welfare Index of the top ten countries in 2000 (Luxembourg, Qatar, Norway, Denmark, United States, Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, Canada and Singapore).

Source: Poverty and Labor Brief: Shifting Gears to Accelerate Shared Prosperity in Latin America and the Caribbean. The World Bank 2013.

The SEDLAC (CEDLAS and WB) harmonization is an effort to increase cross-country comparability. However, methodological changes in the underlying surveys may result in non-comparable data that the harmonization process cannot fully solve. It is important that the user know what data is and is not comparable. For more information, visit the comparability dashboard.

Welcome