April 2026: New WID Working Paper on Income Inequality in Ecuador
Markus Nabernegg published a new working paper with the World Inequality Lab entitled Extreme Income Inequality in Ecuador – Dollarization, Commodity Price Boom, and Citizen Revolution. The paper constructs Ecuador’s first comprehensive Distributional National Accounts (DINA) series for 1990–2022 by combining household surveys with detailed tax microdata.
The results show that extreme income concentration remains highly persistent. In 2022, the top 1% captured around 25% of pretax income, while the bottom 50% received only around 12% of post-tax income. The paper also analyzes how dollarization, the commodity price boom, and the weakening of redistributive capacity in recent years shaped the evolution of inequality in Ecuador.
A short summary is available via WID https://wid.world/news-article/extreme-income-inequality-in-ecuador-dollarization-commodity-price-boom-and-citizen-revolution/, and the full paper https://prod.wid.world/www-site/uploads/2026/04/WorldInequalityLab_WP2026_08_Extreme-Income-Inequality-in-Ecuador_Dollarization-Commodity-Price-Boom-and-Citizen-Revolution_Final.pdf has been published as World Inequality Lab Working Paper 2026/08 .
Nabernegg, Markus. 2026. Extreme Income Inequality in Ecuador – Dollarization, Commodity Price Boom, and Citizen Revolution. World Inequality Lab Working Paper 2026/08.
