A central finding is that the movement of inequality within-countries since 1971 exhibits a strong common pattern across countries, suggesting that changes in the global terms of trade between sectors and especially creditor-debtor relationships have powerfully influenced the movement of inequality almost everywhere. We also find evidence that political regimes matter: ideologically egalitarian regime types do exhibit lower measures of inequality, after controlling for economic variables, for region and for changes over time. The evidence on inequality comes from a series of data sets built by the University of Texas Inequality Project; that on the related factors is developed in background papers referenced below and available on the UTIP web-site at http://utip.gov.utexas.edu .
