News release: “All of us at the Luxembourg Income Study Database (LIS) are delighted that the New York Times (NYT) chose to launch their exciting new venture — The Upshot — with an extensive report, Losing the Lead, based on the LIS data. The Upshot, led by Pulitzer Prize winning economics journalist David Leonhardt, premiered today. The NYT report includes additional information about the data and a note on the process that led them to LIS.  At the request of the NYT, a team at LIS — Janet Gornick, Thierry Kruten, and Branko Milanovic — produced entirely new results, drawing on 164 LIS datasets from 23 countries, covering the period 1979 to 2010. The NYT-LIS study deals with the distribution and growth of household income across countries. The detailed results underlying the NYT report are available in an Excel file. All results are based on the standard LIS variable, disposable household income (DHI), which includes income from wages, self-employment, and capital, plus social transfers, minus direct taxes paid. Our team produced the results in three formats (per capita, per equivalent unit, per household) and in two different currency measures (national currencies and 2005 international dollars).  As explained in their report, the NYT converted the 2005 international dollars to 2014 international dollars, using the U.S. Consumer Price Index. The file contains five sheets:

1. definitions
2. income at different percentiles of the distribution, in national currencies
3. mean income by decile, in national currencies
4. income at different percentiles of the distribution, in 2005 international dollars
5. mean income by decile, in 2005 international dollars.”