In 2005, the World Bank published the World Development Report 2006 on the question of equity, while the United Nations published its biennial Report on the World Social Situation entitled The Inequality Predicament despite very important differences, both these volumes focused on the question of inequality and advocated equity: the World Bank report advocates what it calls 'equal opportunity', whereas the UN report emphasized the structural determinants of inequality in the global system. In October 2007, the International Monetary Fund published its World Economic Outlook on the subject of Globalization and Inequality.

The publication of these volumes has served to re-legitimise study of the causes, measurement and consequences of inequality. Meanwhile, preliminary estimates show that the concentration of wealth throughout the world is much higher, and perhaps has been growing faster, than the concentration of income (Davies, et al. 2006).