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Latest available · compiled 2012

Palma Ratio, 2012 compilation

Each country’s newest reading as of 2012; every row carries its own year · stored as published, never rewritten

The Palma ratio divides the share of income held by a country’s richest 10% by the share held by its poorest 40%. A ratio of 1 means the top tenth hold as much as the bottom four-tenths put together; the most unequal countries run past 7. It is an inequality measure built on the observation that the middle half of most countries holds a fairly steady share, so the fight is at the ends.

Palma Ratio, 2012 compilation covers 87 countries on 2 measures. Honduras is highest, at 4.0410; Ukraine is lowest, at 0.8465. The middle country reads 1.4311. Against the 2011 compilation, 65 values changed (34 up, 31 down), 22 countries joined, 17 left.

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Palma Ratio · Latest available · compiled 2012

HighestHonduras

4.0410

LowestUkraine

0.8465

Shaded by value in five groups of equal size, darkest at the lowest end.

01Position · derived

The table

Every country and every column of Palma Ratio, 2012 compilation, as published. World Bank Group ranks nobody on this measure; the position is derived here by ordering the published values. “=” marks a shared position.

Showing 25 of 87 countries · select a heading to sort

Palma Ratio, 2012 compilation: every country, as published by World Bank Group.
derived
1HondurasHNDCentral America · 2012 reading4.041017.778income2012
2ColombiaCOLSouth America · 2012 reading4.007915.789income2012
3BrazilBRASouth America · 2012 reading3.958714.281income2012
4PanamaPANCentral America · 2012 reading3.616616.598income2012
5MexicoMEXCentral America · 2012 reading3.10609.730income2012
6Costa RicaCRICentral America · 2012 reading2.913711.545income2012
7ParaguayPRYSouth America · 2012 reading2.851310.613income2012
8BoliviaBOLSouth America · 2012 reading2.704118.355income2012
9PhilippinesPHLSouth-eastern Asia · 2012 reading2.60907.765income2012
10EcuadorECUSouth America · 2012 reading2.603211.254income2012
11Dominican RepublicDOMCaribbean · 2012 reading2.58358.619income2012
12DjiboutiDJIEastern Africa · 2012 reading2.445412.451consumption2012
13PeruPERSouth America · 2012 reading2.395510.759income2012
14MadagascarMDGEastern Africa2.12457.364consumption2012.73
15GhanaGHAWestern Africa2.09598.235consumption2012.8
16ChinaCHNEastern Asia · 2012 reading2.08817.921consumption2012
17DR CongoCODMiddle Africa2.05867.770consumption2012.4
18El SalvadorSLVCentral America · 2012 reading2.04787.207income2012
19IsraelISRWestern Asia · 2012 reading2.01049.793income2012
20ArgentinaARGSouth America · 2012 reading2.00109.708income2012
21MontenegroMNESouthern Europe · 2012 reading1.995210.655income2012
22HaitiHTICaribbean · 2012 reading1.97487.556consumption2012
23United StatesUSANorthern America · 2012 reading1.96929.133income2012
24UgandaUGAEastern Africa1.95886.135consumption2012.45
25RussiaRUSEastern Europe · 2012 reading1.93086.195consumption2012

02In Palma Ratio, 2012 compilation

At either end

The 5 countries at each end of the headline, then the highest and lowest on each other measure.

Highest

  1. 1Honduras4.0410
  2. 2Colombia4.0079
  3. 3Brazil3.9587
  4. 4Panama3.6166
  5. 5Mexico3.1060

Lowest

  1. 87Ukraine0.8465
  2. 86Norway0.8749
  3. 85Slovenia0.8773
  4. 84Slovakia0.8816
  5. 83Czechia0.9203

A higher value is the worse result. The middle country reads 1.4311. “Shared” marks a value another country also holds.

Each measure’s ends

  • 90/10 ratio (90th ÷ 10th percentile of income or consumption)

    HighestBolivia18.355

    LowestUkraine3.233

    Middle country: 5.756

032011 → 2012

Since the 2011 compilation

What changed between the 2011 compilation and this one: who joined or left, and how far the headline moved.

  • +22 / −17countries joined / left
  • 65values changed, of 65 in both
  • 34 · 31rose · fell
  • 0unchanged

Rose most

Fell most

+ Albania+ Bhutan+ DR Congo+ Djibouti+ Egypt+ Ghana+ Guinea+ Haiti+ Iraq+ South Korea+ Laos+ Sri Lanka+ Madagascar+ Mexico+ Mauritius+ Nigeria+ Nauru+ Philippines+ Solomon Islands+ Serbia+ Uganda+ Vietnam− Benin− Bosnia and Herzegovina− Chile− Republic of the Congo− Algeria− India− Lebanon− Malaysia− Niger− Pakistan− Palestine− Senegal− Sierra Leone− Chad− Togo− Tanzania− Zimbabwe

Changes in value, not in places: a country’s place also moves when others do. Every country’s full history is charted on the statistic page.

04Caveats

Read before you use

What this edition’s numbers are and are not, worked out from the file itself.

How values are stored

  • Readings from many years

    Each country’s newest reading as of 2012, from 2012 to 2012.

  • The position is ours

    World Bank Group publishes values only; the order is this site’s.

  • Nothing missing

    Every one of the 87 countries has every column.

05The files

Download and cite

The table as a file, digit for digit, what this site changed, and a citation for this edition.

Licence in full
  • .csv

    For a spreadsheet or code

    87 rows · 4.8 KB · UTF-8, opens in Excel

    Opens with 11 lines of source notes; the table starts on row 13.

    Download palma-ratio-2012-nations-inquiry.csv
  • ↗

    The publisher’s original

    World Bank Group’s own file, on its own site.

    pip

What this site changed: Reshaped into one row per country: regional and income-group totals are left out, only the columns listed are kept, each row gets its ISO 3166 code, and some country names are brought to one spelling. No value is recalculated, rescaled or rounded.

Licence: CC BY 4.0 · what it allows, in plain words

Cite this edition

World Bank Group (2012). Palma Ratio, 2012 compilation [data set]. As held by Nations Inquiry, https://nationsinquiry.com/datasets/palma-ratio/2012

0622 held

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