Richard Hauser Irene Becker Johann Wolfgang Goethe-University, FrankfurtlMain This volume marks the end of a research project of the editors titled "The Devel­ opment of the Personal Distribution of Income in Germany" that was financed by the Hans Bockler Foundation from 1994 to 2001. This research concentrated on a national perspective, studying many aspects of income inequality and poverty in West Germany between 1969 and 1998 and extending the analyses to inequality in East Germany after the German reunification. Now at the end point of our empirical analyses, we want to expand the perspective to other research in this field, to challenges for future research, and to the European dimension, rather than to summarise all our results, which is done in another bookl. In 2001, the German goverrunent published its first Poverty and Wealth Re­ 2 port , which also draws on results from our research project. Thus, the intention of this volume is threefold: presenting and advancing Gernlan reporting on poverty in other coun­ and wealth, examining experience with advanced reporting schemes tries, and discussing comparative concepts for social monitoring in the European Union.