Income distribution in Indonesia with special attention to Java 1978 - 1987

The over increasing income gap between the rich and the poor has attracted a growing concern in development literature and government interventions, especially after the Second World War. It has been recognized that the wide differences between incomes of the rich and of the poor are no longer held to be unavoidable. This argues against what is commonly treated as the Pareto's Law; that is, income distribution does not change across regions and times. According to Pareto's view, one may not be better off without making at least another person worse off. There are some doubts on the belief that people are poor because they were born from poor families. Governments may play important roles in increasing the income of the poor by introducing such policies which are likely to improve the welfare of the lowest income class of the population.