Overview
World Inequality Report 2026 is the most authoritative and wide-ranging account available of global trends in inequality. Researched, compiled, and written by a team of world-leading economists, the report builds on the 2022 and 2018 editions to provide policy makers and scholars everywhere up-to-date information about an ever-broader range of countries and about forms of inequality that researchers have previously ignored or found hard to trace. Inequality has increasingly taken center stage in public debate as the wealthiest people in most parts of the world have seen their share of the economy soar relative to that of others. The resulting political and social pressures have posed harsh new challenges for governments and created a pressing demand for reliable data. The World Inequality Lab, housed at the Paris School of Economics and the University of California, Berkeley, has answered this call by coordinating research into the latest trends in the accumulation and distribution of income and wealth on every continent. This new report not only provides up-to-date information about the history of inequality as well as inequalities across regions, climate, gender and tax, but it also offers comprehensive new analysis of privilege and unequal exchange in the global financial system and examines the impact of inequality on political behavior. World Inequality Report 2026 will be a key document for anyone concerned about one of the most imperative and contentious subjects in contemporary politics and economics.
Reviews
""We live in a system where resources extracted from labor and nature in low-income countries continue to sustain the prosperity and the unsustainable lifestyle of people in high-income economies and rich elites across countries. These patterns are not accidents of markets. They re ect the legacy of history and the functioning of institutions, regulations, and policies—all of which are related to unequal power relations that have yet to be rebalanced."" Jayati Ghosh ""History, experiences across countries, and theory all show that today's extreme inequality is not inevitable. Progressive taxation, strong social investment, fair labor standards, and democratic institutions have narrowed gaps in the past—and can do so again. The World Inequality Report 2026 provides the empirical foundation and intellectual framework for what can be done."" Joseph E. Stiglitz ""Inequality is silent until it becomes scandalous. This report gives voice to inequality—and to the billions of people whose opportunities are frustrated by today's unequal social and economic structures."" Ricardo Gómez-Carrera ""The World Inequality Report 2026 is an outstanding achievement: the definitive resource to monitor the evolution of inequality globally, in all its dimensions. It is a true global public good and a vital input for the public conversation throughout the world. We should all be immensely thankful to its authors who are doing such a service by disseminating this knowledge, for the benefit of all."" Gabriel Zucman
Author Information
Lucas Chancel is an Associate Professor of Economics with tenure at Sciences Po, affiliated with the Center for Research on Social Inequalities and the Department of Economics. He is also Co-Director and Senior Economist at the World Inequality Lab at the Paris School of Economics (PSE). Ricardo Gómez-Carrera is a research economist at the World Inequality Lab. Rowaida Moshrif is Co-Director and Head of Data at the World Inequality Lab. She works on the development of large-scale inequality databases and research projects aimed at advancing the understanding of global economic disparities and informing public policy. She is also a PhD candidate at EHESS, affiliated with the Paris School of Economics (PSE). Her research lies at the intersection of economic history and political economy with a regional focus on Egypt. Thomas Piketty is Professor of Economics at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales.
