IS INCOME INEQUALITY IN BULGARIA UNDERESTIMATED IN SURVEY DATA?
Abstract
The present study analyses wage income inequality in Bulgaria during the period 2010-2019, using data from the National Revenue Agency (NRA) on the actual incurred income of taxpayers and survey data on wage income from the Household Budget Survey of the National Statistical Institute (NSI). Key indicators of income inequality are derived under both approaches, which are compared and evaluated through descriptive analysis. The NSI survey data permanently underestimates the level of income and inequality in its distribution, as evidenced by the Gini coefficient, the decile and percentile ratios, as well as other indicators based on them.
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References
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Data Sources
Response to Applications for access to public information with ent. № EП-94-П-1152 dated 04.12.2020, ent. № M-94-П-1153 dated 04.12.2020 and ent. № EП-33-00-300 dated 07.12.2020 according to the inventory of the Central Office of the National Revenue Agency.
NSI. Households Income, Expenditure and Consumption, https://cutt.ly/UGjeYuY.
NSI. Poverty and Social Inclusion Indicators – National Level, https://cutt.ly/BGjeFX5. World Development Indicators (WDI), https://data.worldbank.org/.
World Inequality Database (WID), https://cutt.ly/cGje86q, Methodology: https://wid. world/document/2020dina-update-for-europe-world-inequality-lab-technical-note-2020-04/.