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100			_aAchcar, Gilbert _955250
245			_aOn the ‘Arab Inequality Puzzle’: _bThe Case of Egypt /
260			_bWiley, _c2020.
300			_aVol 51, issue 3, 2020 : (746-770p.).
520			_aThis article surveys and discusses prominent protagonists of the debate on socio-economic inequality in the Arab region, with a special focus on the World Bank and Egypt. According to official data, the region holds remarkably low Gini coefficients in a context of declining inequality. This contradicts the popular perception of high social inequality as a major cause of regional protests since the Arab Spring; hence the reference to a ‘puzzle’ in mainstream literature. The debate about the reality of social inequality in the region has developed since 2011 — particularly in regard to Egypt, where income and consumption data are periodically collected by means of household surveys. Inequality measures based on this method alone, while income taxation data are inaccessible, are highly questionable and conflict with various observations and calculations based on other indicators such as national accounts, executive income or house prices. Yet, the World Bank upholds official inequality findings in portraying the Arab upheaval as the revolt of a ‘middle class’ that aspires to greater business freedom, in consonance with the neoliberal worldview.
773	0		_08737 _916865 _dWest Sussex John Wiley & Sons Ltd. 1970 _tDevelopment and change _x0012-155X
856			_u https://doi.org/10.1111/dech.12585
942			_2ddc _cART
999			_c13594 _d13594