Abstract
The six chapters of this thesis address issues related to inequality, polarisation, poverty, growth, development, and delegability. The first four chapters take an “instrumental” approach. Exploiting structural properties of (local and global) income distributions, these chapters provide methods to better assess, and deal with issues related to, polarisation and poverty. The last two chapters take an “intrinsic” approach, addressing the questions when global policy (in particular, policy related to United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 10) is possible and justified. The paragraphs below, summarise the content of the individual chapters.