UC Berkeley

While much has been written regarding human development - economic growth, lifespan, education - and income distribution, there are few studies that conduct large quantitative analysis of the impact of different levels of income distribution on human development at the national level. This dissertation examines the development of 193 countries starting in 1990 and ending in 2015. I examine how economic equality in the form of income distribution corresponds with development in the form of wealth, lifespan and education. The first stage of the analysis compares two regions, the Middle East and Latin America, and explores the impact of Islam and oil exports on development. This part focuses on the United Nations Human Development Report’s Human Development index - excluding income - as the variable dependent on income distribution. The second stage of the analysis covers all the countries in the dataset, with the United States of America, the United Kingdom, France and Germany examined in depth. In this part of the analysis, I break apart the Human Development Index and examine lifespan and education as individual dependent variables and how they are affected by income distribution and changes in income.