Gabriel Palma is a Chilean development economist. He is an emeritus professor at the University of Cambridge and a part-time professor at the University of Santiago, Chile. He is most noted for his work on dependency theory, the political economy of development in Latin America, and income distribution. He is also known for the Palma ratio, which is defined as the ratio of the richest 10% of the population's share of gross national income divided by the poorest 40%'s share. This is based on Palma's finding that middle-class incomes almost always represent about half of gross national income. In contrast, the other half is split between the richest 10% and the poorest 40%, but the share of those two groups varies considerably across countries.