Income inequality: a tale of two cycles?

<p>Building on previous work, this paper documents the changes in income inequality that have occurred over the past 20 years, right up until the late 1990s. In particular, we are interested in whether or not the path of inequality in the most recent economic cycle differed from that observed in the 1980s. The robustness of the results is investigated using innovative statistical techniques, in an attempt to identify whether or not the observed changes represent real increases or decreases in inequality or whether they can be attributed simply to sampling variation between years. Finally, some preliminary results are presented which attempt to identify some of the reasons underlying the observed trends in income inequality, with a particular focus on the role of the labour market.</p>