Income Distribution and the Macroeconomy: Some Conceptual and Measurement Issues

Abstract

Being intended for students interested with the dynamics of interaction of the macroeconomy, income distribution and poverty and who are users of data and econometric models, this article highlights the conceptual weaknesses, measurement errors and biases of national accounts and household survey data that are commonly used in distributional analyses. It selectively reviews the literature on the methodology of linking income distribution to the macroeconomy.