Persuasion and Possibilities: Graphical Instruments and Personal Income Distribution in the First Half of the Twentieth Century

Abstract At the turn of the twentieth century, academics and policymakers began to show increasing interest in collecting socioeconomic data, which stimulated a debate about the most suitable tools to present those realities graphically. This text will focus on the role of graphical instruments in debates about personal income distribution during the first half of the twentieth century, namely, those proposed originally by Vilfredo Pareto (1848–1923) and Max Lorenz (1876–1959). The analysis aims to demonstrate how economists’ views on graphical instruments were intertwined with their positions on inequality and the effectiveness of policies addressing these issues, and that the choice of graphical instrument was not neutral from a political perspective. The analysis will reveal that underlying the debate about various graphical alternatives for displaying data on personal income are relevant theoretical, empirical, and political dimensions for the analysis of inequality.