An Even Higher Global Inequality Than Previously Thought

The results of the most recent 2005 round of International Comparison Program (ICP), published in the December 2007 Report, allow the authors to obtain much more precise estimates of global poverty and inequality than it was ever possible. The new estimates of Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) exchange rates for 146 countries, and hence of their GDP per capita in PPP terms, are not only the most recent and best estimates that they have, and the survey, "The most comprehensive survey of prices ever undertaken" (as The Report states, p.6), but for a number of countries they are the first such estimates obtained from direct price comparisons.