Poverty and Inequality Platform (PIP): Percentiles

Survey yearsThe Poverty and Inequality Platform: Percentiles database reports 100 points ranked according to the consumption or income distributions for country-year survey data available in the World Bank’s Poverty and Inequality Platform (PIP). As of March 24, 2025, a total of 2,584 country-year data points, which include 2,403 distributions based on microdata, binned data, or imputed/synthetic data, and 181 based on grouped data. For the grouped data, the percentiles are derived by fitting a parametric Lorenz distribution following Datt (1998). For ease of communication, all distributions are referred to as survey data henceforth, and the welfare variable is referred to as income.DetailsEach distribution reports 100 points per country per survey year ranked from the smallest (percentile 1) to the largest (percentile 100) income or consumption. For each income percentile, the database reports the following variables: the average daily per person income or consumption (avg_welfare); the income or consumption value for the upper threshold of the percentile (quantile); the share and total population of the percentile (pop_share, pop); and the share of income or consumption held by each percentile (welfare_share). In addition, the database reports the welfare measure (welfare_type) used in the survey data—income or consumption—and the region covered (reporting_level)—urban, rural, or national. The distributions are available in 2017 or 2021 PPP$. This dataset can be linked to the PIP dataset using the variables country_code, year, reporting_level, and welfare_type.Stata code exampleBelow is an example of how to use the database to generate an anonymous growth incidence curve for Bangladesh between 2005 and 2010 keep if country_code=="BGD" & reporting_level==1 & /// inlist(year,2005,2010)bys country_code percentile (year): /// gen growth05_10 = (avg_welfare/avg_welfare[_n-1] - 1) * 100twoway connected growth05_10 percentile, ytitle("%") /// title("Cumulative growth in Bangladesh, 2005-2010")MetadataSome metadata of the data set, such as the version of the data, can be found by typing `char dir` in the Stata console. Alternatively, please refer to this portal, which contains all the information available.PIP version date: 20260324 (updated March 24, 2026)Lineup yearsNot currently available