In Table 1, we also look at the representativeness for countries rich in natural resources and those affected by conflict.<sup>18</sup> Given the difficulties in conducting surveys in fragile countries, it is perhaps not surprising that the population coverage of fragile countries is low. For example, in the first three benchmark years our surveys cover only 28% on average of the population living in fragile countries. This improves markedly in 2008, which is largely explained by the inclusion of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Sudan.<sup>19</sup> These countries are also responsible for the improvement in the population coverage of resource-rich countries. The lack of information on fragile countries means that our results should be interpreted with caution, and are probably a lower bound on African inequality.<sup>20</sup> Table A3 shows a simple comparison of the population that is included and excluded along macroeconomic aggregates (i.e. every individual is assigned the country average). As was already shown by Table 1, the excluded population lives in countries that (1) have lower GDP per capita; (2) are less likely to be middle or high-income; (3) on average are more likely to be fragile and resource rich; and (4) receive more official development assistance per capita.<sup>21</sup> Table 2 summarizes the panel dimension of our database. Out of 48 African countries, 44 appear in our database in various benchmark years. Hence there are only four African countries that never have a survey that could be included in our database.<sup>22</sup> Out of these 44 countries, 13 appear only for one benchmark year, while 15 countries appear for three benchmark years. We also include a robustness check for a balanced sample of countries. Specifically, we analyze changes between 1993 and 2008 for which we observe 19 countries (second to last column). On average, these countries represent 68% of regional GDP and 52% of regional population. For low income countries, this sample covers only 35% of the population, compared with 70% for the non-low income countries. For natural resource rich country it is nearly 60%. At 30% population coverage, the coverage of fragile states is low but comparable to that observed in the entire sample.

> 18 A country is defined to be resource-rich if the average natural resource rents from 2006 to 2011 are at least 10% of its GDP. The fragile state status is defined by the World Bank’s Harmonized List of Fragile Situation FY15. That is, a country is a fragile state, if the harmonized average CPIA country rating is less than or equal to 3.2, or if there is a presence of a UN and/or regional peace-keeping or peace-building mission during the past three years.

> 19 These two countries account for 26% and 15% of the total population of all fragile states respectively.

> 20 Of course, the lack of data on fragile countries also affects estimates of global poverty. In the estimates of global poverty by the World Bank, countries with missing surveys, many of which would be fragile, are assigned the regional headcount (Chen and Ravallion, 2010; World Bank 2014). It is probably reasonable to expect that poverty would be systematically higher in these countries.

> 21 Fragile, natural resource rich and income status are held constant at the end-year. Net aid received (in current USD) is obtained from OECD.Stat, accessed January 5 2016.

> 22 These four countries are Eritrea, Equatorial Guinea, Somalia, and Zimbabwe.

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