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22 Comp. Pol. Stud. 3 (1989-1990)

handle is hein.journals/compls22 and id is 1 raw text is: In recent years a large number of cross-national studies have examined the causes and consequences of income inequality within nations. Unfortunately, few of these studies have attended very carefully to problems of measurement and definitional consistency that can seriously undermine the comparative use of currently available data on income shares. This article offers a discussion of the major theoretical and practical problems that can arise in measuring and comparing patterns of income distribution across nations, focusing on the completeness of income coverage, the unit of analysis, the time period over which income is measured, the scope of population coverage, the underreporting of income, and the effect of public sector fiscal policies. It then assesses major published sources of cross-national data on the size distribution of income in light of these problems. Finally, the article offers several suggestions for minimizing the negative consequences of measurement problems that remain in even the best available data on income shares. INCOME DISTRIBUTION WITHIN NATIONS Problems of Cross-National Comparison VINCENT A. MAHLER Loyola University of Chicago Income distribution has long been one of the central concerns of comparative politics. In recent years the perennial questions of the political origins and impact of income inequality increasingly have been explored in the context of broad cross-national studies examining a wide range of countries. In considering the developed market economy countries, the most common focus has been on the political determinants of cross-national variation in income inequality, and there is a very sizable literature on the impact of tax and transfer policies, the political orientation of governments, the relative prominence of labor unions, and the extent of social protest on patterns of distribution (see, for example, Borg and Castles, 1982; Katz et al., 1983; and Swank and COMPARATIVE POLITICAL STUDIES, Vol. 22 No. 1, April 1989 3-32 o 1989 Sage Publications, Inc. 3 from the SAGE Social Science Collections. All Rights Reserved.

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