Alfonso E. LizarzaburuParis, 3 July 2016

“Economic gap is poisonous, destroy societies and is extremely dangerous for democracy” “La brecha económica es venenosa, destroza las sociedades y es sumamente peligrosa

para la democracia”Branko Milanović

“Our inequality materializes our upper class, vulgarizes our middle class,brutalizes our lower class.”

Matthew Arnold, English essayist (1822-1888)

BRANKO MILANOVIĆ(1953 - )

Todon Slum in Manila, Philippines, 2014. Photo: Dewald Brand, Miran for Oxfam

MILANOVIĆ, Branko, Global Inequality. A New Approach for the Age of Globalization, Cambridge, Massachusetts (USA)-London (UK): Harvard University Press, 2016, pp. ix + 311. ISBN: 978-0674-7371-36. Cf.:http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674737136 http://harvardpress.typepad.com/hup_publicity/2016/02/immigration-policy-and-global-inequality-branko-milanović.html https://www.amazon.com/Global-Inequality-New-Approach-Globalization/dp/067473713X

One of the world’s leading economists of inequality, Branko Milanović presents a bold new account of the dynamics that drive inequality on a global scale. Drawing on vast data sets and cutting-edge research, he explains the benign and malign forces that make inequality rise and fall within and among nations. He also reveals who has been helped the most by globalization, who has been held back, and what policies might tilt the balance toward economic justice.

Global Inequality takes us back hundreds of years, and as far around the world as data allow, to show that inequality moves in cycles, fueled by war and disease, technological disruption, access to education, and redistribution. The recent surge of inequality in the West has been driven by the revolution in technology, just as the Industrial Revolution drove inequality 150 years ago. But even as inequality has soared within nations, it has fallen dramatically among nations, as middle-class incomes in China and India have drawn closer to the stagnating incomes of the middle classes in the developed world. A more open migration policy would reduce global inequality even further.

Both American and Chinese inequality seems well entrenched and self-reproducing, though it is difficult to predict if current trends will be derailed by emerging plutocracy, populism, or war.

For those who want to understand how we got where we are, where we may be heading, and what policies might help reverse that course, Milanović’s compelling explanation is the ideal place to start.

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments vii

Introduction 1

1. The Rise of the Global Middle Class and Global Plutocrats 10

2. Inequality within Countries: Introducing Kuznets Waves to Explain Long-Term Trends in Inequality

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3. Inequality among Countries: From Karl Marx to Frantz Fanon, and Then Back to Marx?

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4. Global Inequality in This Century and the Next 155

5. What Next? Ten Short Reflections on the Future of Income Inequality and Globalization

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Notes 241

References 265

Index 283

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RELATED LINKS

♦ Read a Forbes Q&A with Branko Milanović

♦ Watch Professor Milanović’s discussion with Paul Krugman and Janet Gornick, Director of CUNY’s Luxembourg Income Study Center, at a CUNY Graduate Center panel

♦ Read Gawker ’s interview with Milanović

♦ At Harvard Business Review , read Milanović’s overview of a major idea behind Global Inequality : that the global 1% and the Asian (considered broadly) middle classes have benefited the most from globalization

♦ Listen to Milanović discuss inequality on a global scale—and its effects on war and mass migration—on Texas Public Radio’s The Source

♦ At Bloomberg View , read Milanović’s brief explanation of five powerful forces driving inequality

♦ Read an excerpt from Global Inequality at Stanford Social Innovation Review

♦ Read an analysis (for the lay reader) of one of Milanović’s theories—that of the “elephant curve”—at Boston Review

♦ Read a Washington Post discussion of Milanović’s findings on inequality as they relate to Pope Francis and Bernie Sanders’s respective campaigns for a “moral economy”

♦ Read a New York Magazine interview with Professor Milanović in which he warns of an upcoming intragenerational struggle for increasingly scarce stable jobs and resources

♦ At Quartz , read an interview with Milanović on the economic factors behind Donald Trump’s surprisingly successful presidential candidacy

♦ Read Milanović’s interview with the São Paulo daily, O Estadão [in Portuguese]

♦ Read a Demos.org interview with Milanović on income inequality

♦ Follow Branko Milanović’s blog, globalinequality

♦ Browse a selection of HUP works on capitalism and its discontents

MILANOVIĆ, Branko, Senior Scholar, Luxembourg Income Study Center; Visiating Presidential Professor, The Graduate Center, The City University of New York (CUNY). Cf.: ♦♦♦♦♦ http://www.gc.cuny.edu/liscenter-branko-milanović

Branko Milanović is a leading scholar on income inequality who joined The Graduate Center as Visiting Presidential Professor and Senior Scholar in the LIS Center. Before coming to the LIS Center, he was Lead Economist in the World Bank's research department. He is the author of The Haves and the Have-Nots: A Brief and Idiosyncratic History of Global Inequality and numerous articles on the global income distribution.

Books:

Milanović, Branko. Global inequality: a new approach for the age of globalization. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2016.

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Milanović, Branko. The Haves and the Have-nots: A Brief and Idiosyncratic History of Global Inequality . New York: Basic, 2011.

Milanović, Branko. Worlds Apart: Measuring International and Global Inequality. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 2005.

Milanović, Branko. Income Inequality and Poverty During the Transition from Planned to Market Economy. Washington, DC: World Bank, 1998.

Publications: 1994-2016.

MILANOVIĆ, Branko, Ideas. Cf.: https://ideas.repec.org/e/pmi44.html

MILANOVIĆ, Branko, Wikipedia. Last modified: 26 June 2016. Cf.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branko_Milanovi%C4%87

MILANOVIĆ, Branko, YouTube. Cf.: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Branko+milanovic

MILANOVIĆ, Branko, “Posts”, 2011-2015. The Globalist. Cf.: http://www.theglobalist.com/contributors/branko-milanovic/

MILANOVIĆ, Branko and Shlomo YITZHAKI, “Decomposing World Income Distribution: Does the World Have a Middle Class?” Review of Income and Wealth, Series 48, Number 2, June 2002, pp. 155-178. Cf.: http://www.roiw.org/2002/155.pdf

Using the national income/expenditure distribution data from 111 countries, we decompose total inequality between the individuals in the world, by continents and regions. We use Yitzhaki’s Gine decomposition which allows for and exact breakdown of the Gini. We find that Asia is the most heterogeneous continent; between-country inequality is much more important than inequality in incomes within countries. At the other extreme is Latin America where differences between the countries are small, but inequalities within the countries is are large. Western Europe and North America is fairly homogeneous both in terms of countries’ mean income and income differences between individuals. If we divide the world population into three groups: the rich (those with incomes greater than Italy’s mean income), the poor (those with incomes less than Western countries’ poverty line), and the middle class, we find that there are only 11 percent of people who are “world middle class”; 78 percent are poor, and 11 percent are rich.

MILANOVIĆ, Branko, Global Income Inequality: What It Is And Why It Matters? New York: United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), August 2006, pp. (DESA Working Paper n.º 26. ST/ESA/2006/DWP/26). Cf.: http://www.un.org/esa/desa/papers/2006/wp26_2006.pdf

The paper presents a non-technical summary of the current state of debate on measurement and implications of global inequality among citizens of the world. It discusses the relationship between globalization and global inequality, shows why global inequality matters and proposes a scheme for global redistribution.

MILANOVIĆ, Branko, La desigualdad mundial de la renta: qué es y por qué es importante? Nueva York: Naciones Unidas, Departamento de Asuntos

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Económicos y Sociales, Agosto de 2006, pp. (DESA Working Paper n.º 26. ST/ESA/2006/DWP/26). Publicado por la Fundación Sistema en Principios, n.º 5, 2006, pp. 35-56. Cf.: http://www.fundacionsistema.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/PPios5_-Branko-Milanovic.pdf

MILANOVIĆ, Branko, Worlds Apart: Measuring International and Global Inequality, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2007 [2005], pp. 240. Cf.: http://press.princeton.edu/titles/7946.html https://books.google.fr/books/p/princeton?id=3GMsOhe-xGIC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ViewAPI&hl=en&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false

We are used to thinking about inequality within countries–about rich Americans versus poor Americans, for instance. But what about inequality between all citizens of the world?

Worlds Apart addresses just how to measure global inequality among individuals, and shows that inequality is shaped by complex forces often working in different directions.

Branko Milanović, a top World Bank economist, analyzes income distribution worldwide using, for the first time, household survey data from more than 100 countries. He evenhandedly explains the main approaches to the problem, offers a more accurate way of measuring inequality among individuals, and discusses the relevant policies of first-world countries and nongovernmental organizations.

Inequality has increased between nations over the last half century (richer countries have generally grown faster than poorer countries). And yet the two most populous nations, China and India, have also grown fast. But over the past two decades inequality within countries has increased. As complex as reconciling these three data trends may be, it is clear: the inequality between the world's individuals is staggering. At the turn of the twenty-first century, the richest 5 percent of people receive one-third of total global income, as much as the poorest 80 percent. While a few poor countries are catching up with the rich world, the differences between the richest and poorest individuals around the globe are huge and likely growing.

MILANOVIĆ, Branko, La era de las desigualdades. Dimensiones de la desigualdad internacional y global, Madrid: Editorial Sistema (Ediciones Fundación Sistema), 2006, pp. 290. Cf.: http://www.casadellibro.com/libro-la-era-de-las-desigualdades/9788486497682/1103239

Branko Milanović, Descadado economista del Banco Mundial, analiza la distribución del ingreso en el mundo utilizando, por primera vez, datos de encuestas de hogares de más de 100 países. Él explica imparcialmente los principales enfoques sobre el problema, ofrece una manera más precisa de medir la desigualdad entre individuos y discute políticas pertinentes de los países del primer mundo y organizaciones no gubernamentales.

MILANOVIĆ, Branko, Global Inequality Recalculated. The Effect of New 2006 PPP Estimates on Global Inequality, Washington, D.C.: The World Bank, Development Research Group, Poverty and Inequality Team, September 2009, pp. 16 (Policy Research Working Paper, 5061). Cf.:

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http://piketty.pse.ens.fr/files/Milanovic2009.pdf

The results of new direct price level comparisons across the 148 countries in 2005 have led to large revisions of purchasing power parity (PPP) exchanges rates, particularly for China and India. The recalculation of international and global inequalities, using de new purchasing power parity rates, shows that inequalities are substantially higher than previously thought. Inequality between global citizens is estimated at 70 Gini points rather than 65 as before. The richest decile receive 57% of global income rather than 50.

MILANOVIĆ, Branko, The Haves and the Have-Nots: A Brief and Idiosyncratic History of Global Inequality, New York: Basic Books, 2011, pp. xiv + 258. Cf.: http://www.basicbooks.com/full-details?isbn=9780465031412 https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0465031412/ref=rdr_ext_tmb https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0465031412/ref=rdr_ext_tmb#reader_0465031412

Who is the richest person in the world, ever? Does where you were born affect how much money you’ll earn over a lifetime? How would we know? Why–beyond the idle curiosity–do these questions even matter?

In The Haves and the Have-Nots, Branko Milanović, one of the world’s leading experts on wealth, poverty, and the gap that separates them, explains these and other mysteries of how wealth is unevenly spread throughout our world, now and through time. Milanović uses history, literature and stories straight out of today’s newspapers, to discuss one of the major divisions in our social lives: between the haves and the have-nots.

He reveals just how rich Elizabeth Bennet’s suitor Mr. Darcy really was; how much Anna Karenina gained by falling in love; how wealthy ancient Romans compare to today’s super-rich; where in Kenyan income distribution was Obama’s grandfather; how we should think about Marxism in a modern world; and how location where one is born determines his wealth.

He goes beyond mere entertainment to explain why inequality matters, how it damages our economics prospects, and how it can threaten the foundations of the social order that we take for granted. Bold, engaging, and illuminating, The Haves and the Have-Nots teaches us not only how to think about inequality, but why we should.

MILANOVIĆ, Branko, Los que tienen y los que no tienen, Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 2012, pp. 280. Cf.: Cf.: http://www.alianzaeditorial.es/cgigeneral/newFichaProducto.pl?obrcod=2894670&id_sello_editorial_web=34&id_sello_VisualizarDatos=34 http://www.casadellibro.com/libro-los-que-tienen-y-los-que-no-tienen/9788420671529/1974095 ¿Quién ha sido la persona más rica de todos los tiempos? ¿Tiene algo que ver dónde se nace con el dinero que se gana a lo largo de la vida? ¿Es el mundo más desigual tras la globalización? ¿Existe una clase media mundial? ¿Quién se beneficia de las políticas redistributivas?

Apoyándose en una extraordinaria investigación que utiliza la historia, la literatura y artículos de la prensa, Milanović aborda de manera accesible una de las cuestiones de más interés en la actualidad: la división que separa a los que tienen de los que no tienen y como ésta se manifiesta en ámbitos muy distintos de nuestras vidas.

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Ameno, erudito, curioso y profundamente informado sobre cada aspecto de la desigualdad económica, Branko Milanović nos guía en su recorrido de Austen a Tolstoi, de la antigua Roma al Brasil moderno, pasando por la Unión Soviética. Explora casi todas las formas que existen de concebir la desigualdad. Y además hace que parezca fácil, cuando no lo es . –James K. Galbraith

MILANOVIĆ, Branko, “Inequality and its Discontents. Why So Many Feel Left Behind”, Foreign Affairs, August 12, 2011. Cf.: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/global-commons/2011-08-12/inequality-and-its-discontents

As income inequality increased in the past quarter century in most parts of the world, it was strangely absent from mainstream economic discussions and publications. One would be hard-pressed, for example, to find many macroeconomic models that incorporated income or wealth inequality. Even in the run-up to and immediate aftermath of the 2007–2008 financial crisis, when income inequality returned to levels not seen since the Great Depression, it did not elicit much attention. Since then, however, the growing disparity in incomes between the rich and poor has taken a place at the top of the public agenda. From Tunisia to Egypt, from the United States to Great Britain, inequality is cited as a chief cause of revolution, economic disintegration, and unrest.

Inequality has won a spot on the top of the world’s agenda because of its objective long-term increase, the ethos of the new rich, and the forces of globalization. The three factors are not independent. Globalization contributed to the increase in inequality. The ideology of those who became rich justified it. But their behavior made these inequalities more glaring and open to questioning. It ultimately undermined the economic order from which they benefited the most. (Branco Milanović).

MILANOVIĆ, Branko (Ed.), Globalization and Inequality, Cheltenham Glos (UK): Edward Elgar Publishing, 2012, pp. 648 (The Globalization of the World Economy Series, n.º 25). Cf.: http://www.e-elgar.com/shop/globalization-and-inequality

This volume brings together the most significant modern contributions to the literature on globalization and inequality. The editor’s selection, set in context by an authoritative introduction, uses broad analyses and important case studies to illustrate the impact on levels of inequality of previous periods of globalization and of the current era of globalization. The collection further focuses on the issues of openness and inequality, and concludes with several benchmark papers that examine global levels of inequality.

MILANOVIĆ, Branko, “Global Income Inequality by the Numbers: In History and Now –An Overview–“, Washington, D.C.: World Bank, November 2012, pp. 28 (Policy Research Working Paper). Cf.: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2173655 http://elibrary.worldbank.org/doi/abs/10.1596/1813-9450-6259 http://heymancenter.org/files/events/milanovic.pdf

The paper presents an overview of calculations of global inequality, recently and over the long-run as well as main controversies and political and philosophical implications of the findings. It focuses in particular on the winners and losers of the most recent episode of globalization, from 1988 to 2008. It suggests that the period might have

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witnessed the first decline in global inequality between world citizens since the Industrial Revolution. The decline however can be sustained only if countries' mean incomes continue to converge (as they have been doing during the past ten years) and if internal (within-country) inequalities, which are already high, are kept in check. Mean-income convergence would also reduce the huge “citizenship premium” that is enjoyed today by the citizens of rich countries.

MILANOVIĆ, Branko, “Why Income Inequality is Here to Stay”, Harvard Business Review, January 03, 2013. Cf.: https://hbr.org/2013/01/why-income-inequality-is-here

Before the global financial crisis, income inequality was relegated to the underworld of economics. The motives of those who studied it were impugned. According to Martin Feldstein, the former head of Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisors, such people must have been motivated by envy. Robert Lucas, a Nobel prize winner, thought that “nothing [is] as poisonous” to sound economics as “to focus on questions of distribution.”

[…]

Thus, there are ideas on how to fight the forces that seem to be driving countries toward an inexorably rising inequality. But even this short sketch suffices to show how seemingly far away are these ideas from the mainstream political desires of the US electorate. For all but the tamest of these proposals, any popular support is lacking.

Citizens seem to wish for things that are mutually inconsistent: lower inequality, greater equality of opportunity (so that inherited advantages matter less), and a continuation of current low-tax policies. It is difficult to see how the latter can, particularly in an era of technological revolutions when large fortunes are quickly made, lead to the outcomes much different from those of the last three decades. So, it seems, it is not the ideas that are wanting but willingness to try them.

MILANOVIĆ, Branko, National and Global Inequality in the age of globalization”, levyinstitute. Power Point of the lecture. Columbia University, Muhlenberg, College, Levy Institute, Winter-Spring 2013. Cf.: http://www.levyinstitute.org/conferences/minsky2013/D1_S2_Milanovic.pdf

MILANOVIĆ, Branko, “Comments on Dani Rodrik’s paper ‘The Past, present and future of economic growth”. Prepared for the Conference of Global Citizen Foundation, Geneva, July 2013, pp. . Cf.: http://www.gcf.ch/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/GCF_-Milanovic-comments-on-Rodrik.pdf

I enjoyed Dani’s paper very much. It is a first-rate review of economic history and factors that have led to the development of the North-Western corner of Eurasia and then spread the development to the Western offshoots, and parts of Asia and Latin America. Dani weaves extremely well and persuasively the grand narrative of economic history with his own empirical findings on growth-promoting factors and policies. In the end, he also looks at what the implications could be for the future.

In my review I would like to focus on three issues: (1) components of global inequality and their political significance, (2) the shrinking space for policy autonomy, and (3) the technological frontier and its implication for the development of poor countries.

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MILANOVIĆ, Branko, Trends in global income inequality and their political implications”. Talk at the Stockholm School of Economics, September 1, 2014, and LIS Center, Graduate School City University of New York (CUNY), Winter 2015. Cf.: ***http://www.levyinstitute.org/conferences/minsky2013/D1_S2_Milanovic.pdf (2013) https://www.hhs.se/contentassets/baa3590722a2434c91719ce8e6b935e1/branko-milanovic.pdfhttps://www.ethz.ch/content/dam/ethz/special-interest/gess/cis/cis-dam/Images/Workshops/Inequality/Branko%20Milanovic_Presentation.pdf

MILANOVIĆ, Branko and Roy van der WEIDE,“Inequality is bad for income growth of the poor (but not for the rich), VOX CEPR’s Policy Portal, 29 November 2014. Cf.: http://voxeu.org/article/good-rich-bad-poor

A breakthrough in understanding the link between growth and inequality came from ‘unpacking’ inequality – looking at inequality measures for different segments of the population rather than just an aggregate measure. This column presents novel research that also ‘unpacks’ growth, investigating the impact of inequality on growth for different groups across the income distribution. Inequality toward the lower end of the distribution hinders growth for the poor, but not for the rich.

MILANOVIĆ, Branko, “3 topics: global inequality, growth and inequality, international transmission of inequality”, Policy Dialogue. Power Point, New York, December 2, 2014. Cf.: http://policydialogue.org/files/events/Branko_PPT.pdf

MILANOVIĆ, Branko, “Migration into Europe: A Problem with No Solution”, Center for Global Development, 07-01-2015: http://www.cgdev.org/blog/migration-europe-problem-no-solution

Sometimes seeing things, even when one is prepared for them, is helpful in focusing the mind. A couple of nights ago, as I got out of a bus that takes passengers from the Malpensa airport in Milan to the Central Railroad Station, I was struck by the number of people, obviously African migrants, camping in the piazza in front of the railroad station. It is not the first time that I have seen migrants en masse in Italy, but never have I seen entire families cooking and eating meals, while sitting on the lawn (or what remains of the lawn), in a large city park.  

One needs just to look at the newspaper headlines to see that the problem of migrants is growing daily in Europe and that its gravity is greater than before. The number of migrants this year has already exceeded 100,000 (about 15 percent higher than the last, record, year);  the number of the dead has reached at least several thousand although the statistics are murky since no one has incentive to compile them. People just die in desert or sea and no one cares. Practically every European country thinks about either deporting the migrants, making the asylum laws more difficult, or simply shutting the borders: from France, that under Sarkozy deported European (sic!) Roma, to Hungary, that threatens to shut its southern border to Serbia, and to Bulgaria that, at the EU urging, has built a wall against Turkey.

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MILANOVIĆ, Branko, “National Vices, Global Virtue: Is the World Becoming more Equal?” Center for Global Development, 21-01-2015. Cf.: http://www.cgdev.org/blog/national-vices-global-virtue-world-becoming-more-equal

You may find the answer surprising, but the most recent data show that the world as a whole is becoming more equal, driven by fast growth rates of China and India and slower growth rates in rich countries. A decrease in the US mean income from 2008 to 2011, for instance, makes global convergence of people’s incomes a lot easier to achieve. Specifically, the latest (2011) data show a global Gini of 67, two points lower than in 2008 and five points lower than what 1998/1993 data showed.

Now, this comes with some caveats. First, the household survey data underrepresents poor people in poor countries (8 percent of world population is missing), so our income inequality measures are almost certainly underestimates. Second, our surveys underrepresent the very rich who furthermore tend to underestimate their wealth. Third, large financial assets hidden in tax havens do not show in fiscal data or in household surveys, leading to further underestimating of inequality.

Despite these caveats (more on them and the calculations below), it is safe to say that despite concerns about inequality within nations, global inequality is on a modest decline. Similarly, despite concerns about the middle class in wealthy nations, a global middle class is emerging. Keep reading for details.

MILANOVIĆ, Branko, “Global Inequality of Opportunity: How Much of Our Income Is Determined by Where we Live?” The Reviews of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 97, n.º 2, May 2015, pp. 452-460. Cf.: http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/REST_a_00432#.V3wYtYfr3cs

Suppose that all people in the world are allocated only two characteristics over which they have (almost) no control: country of residence and income distribution within that country. Assume further that there is no migration. We show that more than one-half of variability in income of world population classified according to their household per capita in 1% income groups (by country) is accounted for by these two characteristics. The role of effort or luck cannot play a large role in explaining the global distribution of individual income.

MILANOVIĆ, Branko and Christopher LAKNER, “Global Income Distribution: From the Fall of the Berlin Wall to the Great Recession”, Institute for New Economic Thinking, Conference Paper, April 2015. Cf.: https://ineteconomics.org/community/experts/bmilanovic

The paper presents a newly compiled and improved database of national household surveys between 1988 and 2008. In 2008, the global Gini index is around 70.5 percent having declined by approximately 2 Gini points over this twenty year period. When it is adjusted for the likely under-reporting of top incomes in surveys by using the gap between national accounts consumption and survey means in combination with a Pareto-type imputation of the upper tail, the estimate is a much higher global Gini of almost 76 percent.

MILANOVIĆ, Branko, “Income Inequality and Citizenship”, Naked Capitalism, May 7, 2015. Posted by David DAYEN. Cf.:

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http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/05/branko-milanovic-income-inequality-citizenship.html

Dave here. This is a readable discussion of inequality between nations, but the conclusions suffer from the conceit that people – particularly people in poor countries – have universal freedom, wherewithal and mindset to pick and choose what country to which they want to emigrate. But other than that nitpick, worth a read.

MILANOVIĆ, Branko, “Introducing Kuznets waves: How income inequality waxes and wanes over the very long run”, VOX CEPR’s Political Portal, 24 February 2016. Cf.:http://voxeu.org/article/introducing-kuznets-waves-income-inequality

Kuznets curve was widely used to describe the relationship between growth and inequality over the second half of the 20th century, but it has fallen out of favour in recent decades. This column suggests that the current upswing in inequality can be viewed as a second Kuznets curve. It is driven, like the first, by technological progress, inter-sectoral reallocation of labour, globalisation, and policy. The author argues that the US has still not reached the peak of inequality in this second Kuznets wave of the modern era.

MILANOVIĆ, Branko, “Introducción a las curvas de Kuznets: cómo la desigualdad de ingresos aparece y desaparece en el largo plazo”, sinpermiso, 24-04-2016. Cf.: http://www.sinpermiso.info/textos/introduccion-a-las-curvas-de-kuznets-como-la-desigualdad-de-ingresos-aparece-y-desaparece-en-el-muy

La curva de Kuznets llegó a ser muy empleada en la segunda mitad del siglo XX para describir la relación entre crecimiento y desigualdad, pero ha dejado de ser popular en las últimas décadas. Este artículo sugiere que al actual resurgimiento de la desigualdad puede entenderse como una segunda curva de Kuznets. Se ve empujada, como la primera, por el progreso tecnológico, por la reasignación intersecorial del trabajo, por la globalización y por la política. El autor sostiene que los EEUU todavía no han llegado al pico de desigualdad en esta segunda curva de Kuznets de la era moderna.

“(Replay) Conférence de Branko Milanović Global Inequality: A New Approach for the Age of Globalization”, Ècole d’Économie de Paris-Paris School of Economics, 2 mai 2016: 59:38 + 53:37. Cf.: http://www.parisschoolofeconomics.eu/fr/actualites/replay-conference-de-branko-milanović-global-inequality-a-new-approach-for-the-age-of-globalization/

Le 02 mai 2016, Paris School of Economics a eu le plaisir d’organiser une conférence avec Branko Milanović intitulée : “Global Inequality : A New Approach For The Age of Globalization”, avec la participation de Thomas Piketty. Cette conférence a été réalisée en partenariat avec la Fondation de la Maison de la Tunisie - CIUP et dans le cadre du Labex OSE.

MILANOVIĆ, Branko, “5 Powerful Forces Driving Inequality”, Bloomberg View, May 10, 2016. Cf.: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-05-10/five-powerful-forces-are-driving-inequality

Income inequality is driven by both political and economic forces and it waxes and wanes over time. In my just-published book, “Global Inequality: A New Approach for the Age of Globalization,” I introduce the concept of Kuznets waves to describe this

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rise and fall. The name comes from the famous American economist Simon Kuznets, who in the 1950s and 1960s argued that as societies underwent the Industrial Revolution they become more unequal, with labor moving from agriculture to industry. This is followed by a period of declining income inequality as highly educated labor becomes more plentiful and social transfers increase. So it seemed that the rich countries were destined to become more egalitarian and stay that way.

MILANOVIĆ, Branko, “Globalization and Inequality: Paul KRUGMAN, Janet GORNICK, and Branko MILANOVIĆ. Panel discussion. Presented by GC Public Programes and the Luxemburg Income Study (LIS) Center, May 11, 2016, 1:07:58. Cf.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9xT9P88fDo

Is globalization responsible for increased income inequality? Three experts and Graduate Center professors explore the complex relationship between these large-scale economic trends. Featuring: Paul Krugman, Nobel laureate and New York Times columnist; Janet Gornick, director of the LIS Center; and Branko Milanović, author of Global Inequality: A New Approach for the Age of Globalization.

MILANOVIĆ, Branko, “Global Inequality: Past, present, and future”. Speech by Branko Milanović at Brookings Institutions, YouTube, May 17, 2016, 22:00. Cf.:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9xT9P88fDo http://www.brookings.edu/events/2016/05/17-global-inequality

On May 17, the Global Economy and Development program at Brookings hosted a panel on inequality that discussed the rising global middle class, global plutocrats, and whether our future will be one of class cleavages or rising shared prosperity.

MILANOVIĆ, Branko, “Why the Global 1% and the Asian Middle Class Have Gained the Most from Globalization”, Harvard Business Review, May 13, 2016. Cf.: https://hbr.org/2016/05/why-the-global-1-and-the-asian-middle-class-have-gained-the-most-from-globalization

It is by now well-known that the period from the mid-1980s to today has been the period of the greatest reshuffle of personal incomes since the Industrial Revolution. It’s also the first time that global inequality has declined in the past two hundred years. The “winners” were the middle and upper classes of the relatively poor Asian countries and the global top 1%. The (relative) “losers” were the people in the lower and middle parts of rich countries’ income distributions, according to detailed household surveys data from more than 100 countries between 1988 and 2008, put together and analyzed by Christoph Lakner and myself, as well as my book Global Inequality: A New Approach for the Age of Globalization, which includes updated information to 2011.

MILANOVIĆ, Branko, “Why ‘Make America Denmark Again’ will not happen”, Globalinequality, Saturday, May 14, 2016. Cf.: http://glineq.blogspot.fr/2016/05/why-make-america-denmark-again-will-not.html

The rise of inequality in rich countries is way over-explained. Because income inequality (evaluated at the level of households or individuals) is such a complex variable, outcome of a vast number of technological, political, demographic and behavioral factors and its neat decomposition into these various factors is impossible,

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we shall always have a plethora of potential explanans. This was a point nicety raised in a recent post by Chico Ferreira from the World Bank .

But not all explanations are equally powerful or make sense.

MILANOVIĆ, Branko, “The Origins of the Great Divergence”, Globalinequality, Friday, June 3, 2016. Cf.: http://glineq.blogspot.fr/

While the world is witnessing global convergence (essentially the catch up of Asia with the West), the debates about the origins of the Great Divergence—the take-off of the West and absence of growth in the Rest—are going strong. I just finished an excellent book ("Escaping poverty") by Peer Vries who reviews the origins of modern economic growth and proposes his own theory on what made the West, and in particular, Great Britain start the Industrial Revolution and China not.

MILANOVIĆ, Branko, “The Three Middle Classes and Populism”, Globalinequality, Monday, June 20, 2016. Cf.: ♦♦♦♦♦ http://glineq.blogspot.fr/

In November this year American voters will choose between populism and plutocracy. The choice was clearly highlighted in my Global Inequality (Chapter 4) written more than a year ago although at that time I could not anticipate the extraordinary rise of Donald Trump.

That rise, combined with the populist reaction against globalization, immigration and foreigners, has become the staple of newspaper and magazine articles to the extent that some, like in the recent New York Review of Books, claim (of course with the hindsight) that populism was both inevitable and predictable. It is, not only in the United States, but also in the UK, France, Denmark, Sweden and elsewhere fueled (as is commonly argued), by the very slow or nil real income growth of the middle-income groups in rich countries. The graph below (based on Luxembourg Income Study data) shows this clearly: the shares of the middle four deciles have declined over the past 30 years by between 1 and 4 GDP points in key developed countries. The phenomenon therefore is not only American: it is common to all rich countries. 

MILANOVIĆ, Branko, “The greatest reshuffle of individual incomes since the Industrial Revolution”, VOX CEPR Policy Portal, 01 July 2016. Cf.: http://voxeu.org/article/greatest-reshuffle-individual-incomes-industrial-revolution

The effects of of globalisation on income distributions in rich countries have been studied extensively. This column takes a different approach by looking at developments in global incomes from 1988 to 2008. Large real income gains have been made by people around the median of the global income distribution and by those in the global top 1%.  However, there has been an absence of real income growth for people around the 80-85th percentiles of the global distribution, a group consisting of people in ‘old rich’ OECD countries who are in the lower halves of their countries’ income distributions.

MILANOVIĆ, Branko and J. Roemer, “Interaction of global and national income inequalities”, Journal of Globalization and Development. Forthcoming.

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It’s time we face up to the imbalances that distort our global economy. There’s nothing

natural about extreme inequality. It is man-made. It has to do with power. And we need to have the

courage to say so.Jason HICKEL

http://therules.org/global-inequality-may-be-much-worse-than-we-think/

A.A. “Global Inequality”, International Relations, s.d. [2014?]. Cf.:http://internationalrelations.org/global-inequality/

In this article, we shall examine the issue of global inequality in international relations and international affairs. Specifically, we will discuss issues of financial inequality amongst the different people throughout the world. We will discuss financial inequality as it relates to income, health, education, access to energy, water, amongst other issues. We will also list references related to the topic global inequality.

A.A. “Inégalités, mondialisation, populisme: entretien avec Branko Milanović, l’auteur du livre choc pour tout comprendre à la spirale infernale dans laquelle se débattent les sociétés occidentales”, Atlantico, 17 mars 2016. Mis à jour le 18 mars 2016. Cf. : http://www.atlantico.fr/decryptage/inegalites-mondialisation-populisme-entretien-avec-branko-milanović-auteur-livre-choc-pour-tout-comprendre-spirale-infernale-2628244.html/page/0/1

D’après Branko Milanović, ancien directeur de la recherche économique auprès de la Banque mondiale, la mondialisation s'est faite au détriment des classes moyennes occidentales, quand elle a profité aux plus riches. A l’occasion de la sortie de son nouveau livre: “Inégalité mondiale: une nouvelle approche à l’ère de la mondialisation”, il exprime ses craintes sur l’évolution des inégalités dans le monde; ainsi que le rôle qu'elles ont pu jouer par le passé.

A.A. “The New Wave. Surprisingly little is known about the causes of inequality. A Servian-American economist proposes an interesting theory”, The Economist, April 2nd 2016. Cf.: http://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21695853-surprisingly-little-known-about-causes-inequality-serbian-american-economist

IT’S a golden age for studying inequality. Thomas Piketty, a French economist, set the benchmark in 2014 when his book, “Capital in the Twenty-First Century”, was published in English and became a bestseller. The book mapped the contours of the crisis with a sweeping theory of economic history. Inequality, which had been on the wane from the 1930s until the 1970s, had risen sharply back toward the high levels of the Industrial Revolution, he argued. Now Branko Milanović, an economist at the Luxembourg Income Study Centre and the City University of New York, has written a comprehensive follow-up. It reinforces how little is really known about economic forces of long duration.

AISBETT, Emma, “Why Are the Critics So Convinced that Globalization Is Bad for the Poor?” in Ann HARRISON (Ed.), Globalization and Poverty, University of

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Chicago Press, March 2007, pp. 33-85. Cf.: [Conference Date: September 10-12, 2004] http://www.nber.org/chapters/c0113.pdf

Economic globalization is a surprisingly controversial process. Surprising, that is, to the many economists and policymakers who believe it is the best means of bringing prosperity to the largest number of people all around the world. Proponents of economic globalization have had a tendency to conclude that dissent and criticism are the result of ignorance or vested interest (Bardhan 2003). They have argued that antisweatshop campaigners do not understand that conditions in the factories owned by multinationals tend to be better than those in comparable domestic firms; that environmentalists are denying the world’s poor the right to develop freely; and that unionists in developed countries are protecting their interests at the expense of the workers in poorer parts of the world.

[…]

Over all it seems that the difference of opinion between globalization’s supporters and critics can be largely explained by differences in prior views and priorities, as well as current ambiguities in the empirical evidence. Rather than viewing criticism as a burden to be thrown off as quickly as possible, policymakers and researchers alike could do well to heed its message: “good” isn’t good enough. We owe it to the world’s poor to do better.

ANAND, Suhdir and Paul SEGAL, The Global Distribution of Income, London: King’s International Development Institute, King’s College London, May 2014, pp. 53 (International Development Institute Working Paper 2014-01). Cf.: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/sspp/sga/idi/Research/Global-Distribution-IDI-working-paper-2014-01.pdf This paper investigates recent advances in our understanding of the global distribution of income, and produces the first estimates of global inequality that take into account data on the incomes of the top one percent within countries.

We discuss conceptual and methodological issues – including alternative definitions of the global distribution, the use of household surveys and national accounts data, the use of purchasing power parity exchange rates, and the incorporation of recently available data on top incomes from income tax records.

We also review recent attempts to estimate the global distribution of income. Our own estimates combine household survey data with top income data, and we analyze various aspects of this distribution, including its within- and between-country components, and changes in relative versus absolute global inequality. Finally, we examine global poverty, which is identified through the lower end of the global distribution.

ANNETT, Anthony, “Book Reviews: ‘Winners and Losers: Branco Milanović Global Inequality: A New Approach for the Age of Globalization”, Finance & Development (International Monetary Fund-IMF), Vol. 53, n.º 1, March 2016, p. 16. Cf.: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2016/03/book1.htm http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2016/03/pdf/book1.pdf

More generally, the ethical issues raised by inequality are still missing from the debate. This needs to change largely because economists tend to subordinate distributive justice to efficiency. Our conversation about inequality would benefit greatly from reflection on such questions as what constitutes fair allocation of

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resources, what we owe each other in a globalized world, and what characterizes a good society.

ANNETT, Anthony, “Críticas de Libros: ‘Ganadores y perdedores: Branco Milalnović Global Inequality: A New Approach for the Age of Globalization”, Finanzas & Desarrollo (Fondo Monetario Inernacional-FMI), marzo de 2016, p. 56. Cf.: https://www.imf.org/external/Pubs/FT/fandd/spa/2016/03/pdf/book1.pdf

Generalmente, en estos debates no se abordan los problemas éticos que engendra la desigualdad. Esto debe cambiar, sobre todo porque los economistas tienden a subordinar la justicia distributiva a la eficiencia. Una reflexión sobre la distribución equitativa de los recursos muestra obligaciones mutuas en un mundo globalizado y las características de una sociedad sólida enriquecerán probablemente la discusión sobre la desigualdad.

ARANDARENKO, Mihail, “Branko Milanoć: The Haves and Have-Nots: A Brief and Idiosyncratic History of Global Inequality”, Czech Sociological Review, Vol. 48, n.º 3, pp. 579-582. Cf.: http://sreview.soc.cas.cz/en/issue/121-sociologicky-casopis-czech-sociological-review-3-2012/3168 http://sreview.soc.cas.cz/uploads/4b5cb3c043fd124fd0b1384e91a2560daa4ebe9b_12-3-20rewievs17.indd-2_Arandarenko.pdf

The Haves and the Have-Nots deals with the inequality of income and wealth in their many dimensions and in and across different times and different places. For those familiar with Branko Milanović’s work, this book might at fi rst glance be mistaken for a popular, non-technical version of the author’s landmark contribution to the analysis of global inequality in the era of globalisation, Worlds Apart—Measuring International and Global Inequality [2005]. The Have sand the Have-Nots, however, is more than that. It is also, as the subtitle hints, a brief history of inequality, expanding the focus also into economic history, the history of economic thought, political philosophy, and even, for good measure, literary history.

Although executed as a relatively short collection of non-technical academic essays and freestyle vignettes, it is an important and innovative book and one of the most comprehensive and accessible sources on economic inequality today.

Inequality is a simple and yet slippery concept. It is relational (and hence relative) by definition […]

Milanović offers two strong sets of reasons for the institutionalisation of transfers from rich to poor countries, or better still, from rich people in rich countries to poor people in poor countries. The first set is utilitarian–huge income gaps between countries induce socially unsustainable migration flows, contribute to political instability in both immigration and emigration countries, and represent a threat to global human security and global public health, etc. The second set of arguments for lowering global inequality is ethical. As the network of important economic and social relations among world citizens becomes denser, the duty of justice, and hence concern with global inequality and redistribution, is gradually growing. The even stronger, cosmopolitan view proposes that all world citizens have an equal moral value and an equal moral claim on each of us. Therefore, all inequality is essentially global.

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BAKER, Dean, “Global Inequality: Branko Milanović Takes on the World”, The Huffington Post, 16-03-2016. Cf.: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dean-baker/global-inequality-branko_b_9480366.html

BHATTACHARYA, Aveek, “Global Inequality is Falling. So What? Carnegie Council, January 7, 2015. Cf.: http://www.carnegiecouncil.org/publications/ethics_online/0101

In other words, inequality is rising within countries, but is falling for the world as a whole1 . The rich are moving further away from the poor within the United States and Europe, but the gap between the global rich and the global poor has narrowed. This is explained by the fact that while the middle classes in rich countries have seen relatively low income growth in the past 20 years, they remain relatively rich by global standards. Thus the rapid growth of poorer countries, particularly China, has contributed to lower global inequality.

What are we to make of this finding? Does the reduction in global inequality in recent years compensate for higher domestic inequality? The question takes on particular importance because of the evidence that the two might be linked, raising the possibility of a policy trade-off. Tyler Cowen suggests that “Policies on immigration and free trade, for example, sometimes increase inequality within a nation, yet can make the world a better place and often decrease inequality on the planet as a whole,” (though we should be wary of taking this at face value, as both claims are controversial).

BERTRAM, Chris, “Branko Milanovi advocates reinventing apartheid”, Crooked Timber, April 21, 2016. Cf.: http://crookedtimber.org/2016/04/21/branko-milanovic-advocates-reinventing-apartheid/

In an op-ed in the Financial Times, the economist Branko Milanović advocates that in order to fight global poverty, we should introduce explicit systems of differentiated citizenship in wealthy countries under which immigrants (and their children? and their children’s children?) would be entitled only to a reduced package of rights. He argues that we should

redefine citizenship in such a way that migrants are not allowed to lay claim to the entire premium falling to citizens straight away, if at all. Restricting the citizenship rights of migrants in this way would assuage the concerns of the native population, while still ensuring the migrants are better off than they would be had they stayed in their own countries. As happens currently in the Gulf states, migrants could be allowed to work for a limited number of years, or to work only for a given employer, or else be obliged to return to their country of origin every four or five years. They could also be made to pay higher taxes since they are the largest net beneficiaries of migration. Despite such discriminatory treatment, the welfare of migrants and their families would increase, while native populations would not be made to share their entire premium with incomers.

BUNKER, Nick, “ICYMI: Minanovic on why wealth is not income and income is not consumption”, Washington Center for Equitable Growth, February 4, 2015. Cf.:

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http://equitablegrowth.org/equitablog/icymi-milanovic-wealth-not-income-income-not-consumption/

It is a wrong belief that there should be one and only one measure that would give us the answer who is poor and who is rich. The three welfare aggregates (wealth, income and consumption) are related but they are not the same. (And I leave out other “details” like the distinction between net income, that is, after-fisc income, and market income or income before any government transfers and taxes.) There are people who are poor or middle class according to one measure but rich according to another. Wealth is not income nor is income consumption.

CARBAJOSA, Ana, “Nunca ha habido tanta desigualdad”, El País (Madrid, España), 4 de septiembre de 2015. Cf.: http://economia.elpais.com/economia/2015/09/03/actualidad/1441293562_230604.html

El economista Branko Milanović alerta de los peligros que entraña la brecha económica para los países, a los que asegura que carcome y destruye.

CONTRERAS, Carlos, Revista de Economía (Lima: Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú), Vol. 35, n.º 70, pp. 2012. Cf.: http://revistas.pucp.edu.pe/index.php/economia/article/view/3852/3826

CORAK, Miles, “The Winners and losers of globalization, Branko Milanović’s new book on inequality answers two important questions”, Economics for Public Policy, May 18, 2016. Cf.: https://milescorak.com/2016/05/18/the-winners-and-losers-of-globalization-branko-milanovics-new-book-on-inequality-answers-two-important-questions/

http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2016/05/worlds-of-inequality.html

Branko Milanović begins his book, Global Inequality, by posing a question: “Who has gained from globalization?” Many thoughtful Americans have the confidence to answer in a sentence. The gains have been captured by the top 1 percent. And the book ends with another question: “Will inequality disappear as globalization continues?” Many might be just as quick to answer: Of course not, the rich will get richer!

But life is not so simple. Between these two questions Branko Milanović offers us not just a plethora of facts about income inequality that will surely make his readers think twice. More importantly, he shows us the power of bringing the facts into focus by putting a new lens over these pressing issues–a global perspective. He takes more than 200 pages to answer the first question, and only a sentence to answer the second.

DAVIDSON, Jacob, “Yes, Oxfam, the Richest 1% Have Most of the Wealth. But That Means Less Than You Think”, Money, January 21, 2015. Cf.: http://time.com/money/3675142/oxfam-richest-1-wealth-flawed/

It’s still bad... but wealth inequality doesn’t mean standards of living aren't becoming increasingly equal.

For the past few years, Oxfam, the British anti-poverty organization, has released a series of reports with increasingly dire statements about wealth inequality. This year, it’s back with a new straight-to-the-headlines statistic: The top 1% will control more wealth than the remaining 99% by 2016.

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That’s a pretty dire prediction–but the truth is not quite that bad.

DODWELL, David, “Global inequality under the microscope”, Global Economy, Friday, 13 May, 2016. Cf.: http://www.scmp.com/business/global-economy/article/1944072/global-inequality-under-microscope

The ‘Global Top one per cent’ – the lucky 70 million people who have captured a massive share of the new wealth generated in the world economy over the past 30 years – must be squirming over their Bollinger about the public enemy status they are beginning to acquire worldwide.

All the more so with the publication of a hard-hitting new book by the Serbian-American economist Branko Milanović.

Global Inequality reveals that the main losers of the past three decades of globalisation have been the western middle classes.

DOMANSKI, Dietrich, Michela SCALIGNA and Anna ZABAI, “Wealth inequality and monetary policy”, Bank of International Settlements, 6 March 2016. Cf.: http://www.bis.org/publ/qtrpdf/r_qt1603f.htm

This feature explores the recent evolution of household wealth inequality in advanced economies by looking at valuation effects on household assets and liabilities. Using household survey data, we analyse the possible drivers of wealth inequality and the potential effect of monetary policy through its impact on interest rates and asset prices. Our simulation suggests that wealth inequality has risen since the Great Financial Crisis. While low interest rates and rising bond prices have had a negligible impact on wealth inequality, rising equity prices have been a key driver of inequality. A recovery in house prices has only partly offset this effect. Abstracting from general equilibrium effects on savings, borrowing and human wealth, this suggests that monetary policy may have added to inequality to the extent that it has boosted equity prices.

DRWENSKI, Matthew, “Data on Inequality and the Inequality on Data: The Last Two Centuries”, Journal of World Historical Information, Vol. 2-3, n.º 1, 2014-2015, pp. 71-79. Cf.: http://jwhi.pitt.edu/ojs/index.php/jwhi/article/view/15

This paper attempts a number of tasks that will further the study of world-historical human inequality, by arguing for a comprehensive understanding of inequality and by informally comparing and aggregating multiple datasets. The paper briefly surveys and critiques the existing corpus of inequality data, noting areas of overlap, opportunities for harmonization of data, and the coverage of the historical information.

The inclusion of micro-level data from historical scholarship that is not in communication with the social scientific studies is essential to further the field. The paper concludes with a regional and global narrative of human inequality over the last two centuries. 

DURDEN, Tyler, “The End of the American Dream – Half of US Households Are “’Financially Fragile’”, June 1, 2016. Cf.: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-06-01/end-american-dream-half-us-households-are-financially-fragile

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The middle class in America is in crisis, with incomes falling and life expectancy worsening. Why? And what can be done about it?

What’s it like to be a middle-class American?

Increasingly precarious, it seems. In an article entitled “The Secret Shame of Middle Class Americans” in this month’s issue of The Atlantic, the writer Neal Gabler – an author, film critic and academic – came out as one of the many millions of apparently middle-class Americans who are in fact living in a “more or less continual state of financial peril” – scrabbling around to make ends meet, and mostly failing.

Gabler draws attention to a regular survey by the Federal Reserve, which asks consumers a set of questions, including how they would pay for a $400 emergency. “The answer: 47% of respondents said that either they would cover the expense by borrowing or selling something, or they would not be able to come up with the $400 at all”, writes Gabler. “Four hundred dollars! Who knew? Well, I knew. I knew because I am in that 47%.”

[…]

End of the American Dream – why voters turn to Trump

The rise of Donald Trump to be a contender for the US presidency may seem hard to understand, but remarkable data on American mortality rates (which are rising) and life expectancy (which is falling) hints at the middle-class problems that drive his popularity.

Princeton professors Anne Case and Angus Deaton found a sharp change in these between 1990 and 2010 among less educated,  middle-aged white people, due to drug and alcohol misuse and suicide. “It is tough to fail in a culture that worships personal success,” says Martin Wolf in the FT. “Support for Mr Trump among this group must express this despair. As their leader, he symbolises success. He also offers no coherent solutions. But he does provide scapegoats.”

FERREIRA, Francisco H.G. and Martin RAVALLION, Global Poverty and Inequality: A Review of the Evidence, Washington, D.C.: The World Bank, Development Research Group, Poverty Team, May 2008, pp. 42 (Policy Research Working Paper 4623). Cf.: http://rrojasdatabank.info/wps4623.pdf

Drawing on a compilation of data from household surveys representing 130 countries, many over a period of 25 years, this paper reviews the evidence on levels and recent trends in global poverty and income inequality. It documents the negative correlations between both poverty and inequality indices, on the one hand, and mean income per capita on the other. It point to the dominant role of Asia in accounting for the bulk of the world’s poverty reduction since 1981. The evolution of global inequality in the last decades is also described, with special emphasis on the different trends of inequality within and between countries. The statistical relationships between growth, inequality and poverty are discussed, as is the correlation between inequality and the growth elasticity of poverty reduction. Some of the recent literature on the drivers of distributional change in developing countries is also reviewed.

FERREIRA, Francisco H. G., “Kuznets Waves and the Great Epistemological Challenge to Inequality Analysis”, The World Bank, Wednesday 04 February 2016. Cf.:

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http://blogs.worldbank.org/category/tags/global-inequality http://blogs.worldbank.org/impactevaluations/kuznets-waves-and-great-epistemological-challenge-inequality-analysis

A couple weeks ago I was fortunate to serve as a discussant at one (of the many) launch events for Branko Milanović’s latest book: Global Inequality: A new approach for the age of globalization. The book is hugely thought-provoking, and a pleasure to read. Along with many people in the audience, we had a great conversation. Over lunch afterwards, Branko urged me to put my thoughts into a blog – so here they are!

[…]

Yet, somewhat surprisingly, the most ambitious contribution of Branko’s new book does not lie in the international domain. Instead, it is his attempt to resolve the tension between the views of two of his intellectual heroes, regarding long-term inequality dynamics within countries. An attempt, in other words, to reconcile Simon Kuznets’s “traditional” inverted-U curve – which postulated that inequality tended to rise during the process of economic development, as resources flowed from a low-productivity, low-inequality sector to another where both of those things were higher, and then fell when the advanced sector became dominant and between-sector inequality fell - and Thomas Piketty’s recent empirical characterization of the 20th Century as a period where inequality in advanced economies basically described a U curve – falling through World War II and its aftermath, and rising since the 1980s, or thereabouts.

[…]

In this fascinating book, Branko has largely avoided the frustrations and complexities of this epistemological struggle with the attribution of cause and effect to different forces driving changes in inequality. But in doing so, he has inevitably left a big gap between the empirical description of what happened and the theoretical hypotheses of why it might have happened. From the perspective of understanding mechanisms, there are probably more questions than answers here.

FUENTES-NIEVAS, Ricardo, “On Wealth, debt and inequality”, Oxfam.blog [Mind the Gap – Oxfam], January 26, 2015. Cf.: http://oxfamblogs.org/mindthegap/

It’s been an exciting week for Oxfam. Our newest piece of research Wealth: Having it all and wanting more conducted by Deborah Hardoon has received a lot of attention around the world, including coverage by the Economist, CNN, the BBC, etc. The report has sparked a global conversation about wealth and inequality, in the run up to the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum. While the most of the coverage has been positive, over the last few days, several people have also criticized in one way or another the results we presented. Fair enough. I want to focus on one issue in particular here: the use of wealth (assets minus debt) in our calculations.

GALASSO, V. Nicholas, The Drivers of Economic Inequality: A Backgrounder for Oxfam’s Inequality Campaign”, 2014, pp. (Oxfam America Research Backgrounder Series). Cf.: https://www.oxfamamerica.org/static/media/files/oxfam-drivers-of-economic-inequality.pdf

This paper is intended to offer a background of the state and drivers of global economic inequality. The paper is divided into two major parts. The first is descriptive and the second explanatory. The first part provides a snapshot of global economic

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inequality, along with a discussion of how economic growth and poverty reduction in China (and to a lesser extent India) altered the global distribution of income and wealth. The second major part provides a short analysis of the major drivers of inequality. The overview of the drivers is not exhaustive, however, as there are other contributing factors outside of the reach of a paper such as this.

It can be a herculean task to wrap one’s head around economic inequality. It involves taking into account population growth, economic dynamics, geographies, political institutions, and social discrimination - simultaneously. This paper intends to offer a concise account of trends (both globally and within countries) over recent decades to inform Oxfam staff on these issues.

GREEN, Duncan, “Book Review: Branco Milanović’s brilliant take on Global Inequality”, Oxfamblog, April 15, 2016. Cf.: http://oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/book-review-branko-milanovics-brilliant-take-on-global-inequality/

Some of my favourite development economist are nomads, people with feet in different regions, which seems to make them better able to identify interesting patterns and similarities/differences between countries. Ha-Joon Chang (Korea/UK), Dani Rodrik (Turkey/US) and now Branko Milanovic (Serbia/US), whose latest book Global Inequality: A New Approach for the Age of Globalization is a brilliant and thought-provoking essay stuffed with enough graphs to satisfy the numerati, anecdotes for the general reader and political insights for the policy wonks. Read it.

Milanović is best known for his number crunching, especially his great graph of where the money from global growth went from 1988-2008 (see left). There’s no better way of showing the simultaneous rise of the emerging world (mainly Asian) middle class and the global plutocracy, accompanied by the hollowing out of the Western middle class and the neglect of the poorest.

But this book, even more than his previous ones, his previous one

s, shows he is much more than a tweeter of top graphs: his level of political curiosity and insight is uncommon for an economist. He introduces politics much more centrally than other inequality gurus like Thomas Piketty or Angus Deaton, for example. In fact, I wish he’d given more time to the politics bit, and less to the economics. More on that later.

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GREEN, Duncan, “Book Review: Global Inequality: A New Approach for the Age of Globalization by Branko Milanović”, London School of Economics US Center 29th

May, 2016. Cf.: http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/2016/05/29/book-review-global-inequality-a-new-approach-for-the-age-of-globalization-by-branko-milanovic/

GUIDETTI, Giovanni and Roike REHBEIN, “Theoretical Approaches to Inequality in Economics and Sociology. A Preliminary Assessment”, Transcience, Vol. 5, Issue 1, 2014, pp. 15. Cf.: http://www2.hu-berlin.de/transcience/Vol5_No1_2014_1_15.pdf

This paper discusses approaches to inequality that have been advanced by economics and sociology. It argues that a communication between both disciplines is necessary to make sense of the drastic increase in socio-economic inequality that we are observing at present. The aim of the paper is neither to trace the history of research in the field nor to give an overview of all available data. It rather seeks to assess the most relevant contributions in view of a research agenda that encompasses the virtues of existing approaches while avoiding their shortcomings and pitfalls. The main goal, however, is to build a bridge between economics and sociology. Both disciplines have advanced research on inequality, partly in a parallel fashion. It is time to establish a transdisciplinary research agenda.

The first part of the paper distinguishes between three traditions of research on inequality, each of which has been elaborated in both economics and sociology. The second part discusses the main issues of contemporary inequality that have been acknowledged by the three traditions and that need to be taken into account. In the final part, we draw conclusions of the discussion by critically assessing the explanatory power of existing approaches and by pointing to desiderata in theory building.

HARDOON, Deborah, “Our stats struck a nerve, now let’s hit back inequality”, Oxfam Policy and Practice Blog, 20th January 2016. Cf.: http://policy-practice.oxfam.org.uk/blog/2016/01/our-stats-struck-a-nerve

Oxfam’s latest inequality report and stats have prompted some lively debate in the run up to the World Economic Forum. Here Deborah Hardoon, Deputy Head of Research, explains how we came up with the stats and why we're confident about our findings.

Oxfam made headlines this week with our stats on wealth inequality, particularly the finding that the 62 richest people in the world own as much as the poorest half of the world's population. We’re pleased that people want to know more and dig into the detail of how we came to these findings. Last year we were questioned on our calculations and we provided robust explanations – the story has been nicely reviewed by the New Yorker in the article ‘Critics of Oxfam’s poverty statistics are missing the point’. This year new questions have been raised, which provides another opportunity for us to explain why these results are so important.

[…]

Some critics have suggested that a fall in the wealth of the poorest doesn't matter when extreme poverty (measured according to incomes) is falling. Two things are important to mention here, firstly that wealth is important - not only because it determines a person's ability to respond to financial shocks, but also because at the other end of the

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distribution, with wealth comes disproportionate power and influence over policies and structures that affect all of us. And secondly, whilst poverty reduction has been impressive, our analysis of income inequality shows that it's not been good enough. In the 25 years from 1988 to 2011 the incomes of the poorest 10% of people has increased from 54 cents a day to 72 cents a day, or less that 1% of global income growth. Unless income inequality is reduced, we will fail to eradicate poverty by 2030. In response to similar challenges from last year, Branko Milanovic sums up the distinction between income and wealth inequality and why it is important we look at both. 

As the world's business and political leaders gather in Davos this week, we are reminding the world that inequality is at crisis levels. It makes no economic or moral sense for so much wealth to be concentrated in the hands of so few. And whilst questions on data and methodology are important let them not detract from the fact that the extreme levels of wealth inequality we point to are real, and must be taken seriously.

HEYMAN CENTER, Society of Fellows, “Global Inequality with Joseph E. STIGLITZ, James K. GALBRAITH, and Branko MILANOVIĆ”, Vimeo, Tuesday 26 February, 2013. Video: 2:06:33. Cf.: https://vimeo.com/60558495

The relatively new field of inequality studies is gaining increasing momentum as economic disparity grows throughout the world, in advanced countries as well as less developed ones –especially in the United States.

Speakers Joseph E. Stiglitz, professor of economics at Columbia University and the recipient of a John Bates Clark Medal and a Nobel Prize, James K. Galbraith, Professor of Government at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, University of Texas, and Branko Milanović, Lead economist in the World Bank's research department, will address the progressive emergence of this new discipline: from its roots in classical economics, with its focus on the inequality of social classes (the functional distribution of income), to its shift, beginning in the early part of the twentieth, toward considering inequality among individuals.

What sorts of data make it possible to measure inequality among citizens of a nation–and between citizens of different nations? Can we measure inequality between individuals of different nations as if they belonged to the same one? Does a polarization measure say anything about the structure of a society? How do we measure what happens between the extremes of the very rich and the very poor?

HICKEL, Jason, “Global inequality may be much worse than we think”, The Guardian, Friday, 8 april, 2016. Cf.: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2016/apr/08/global-inequality-may-be-much-worse-than-we-think

It’s familiar news by now. Oxfam’s figures have gone viral: the richest 1% now have more wealth than the rest of the world’s population combined. Global inequality is worse than at any time since the 19th century.

For most people, this is all they know about global inequality. But Oxfam’s wealth figures don’t quite tell the whole story. What about income inequality? And – more importantly – what about inequalities between countries? If we expand our view

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beyond the usual metrics, we can learn a lot more about how unequal our world has become.

The first thing to say about Oxfam’s numbers is that they present a very conservative picture. Given that the rich hide so much of their wealth in tax havens and secrecy jurisdictions, it is impossible to know how much they really have. Recent estimates suggest that up to $32tn is stored away in tax havens – around one sixth of the world’s total private wealth. If we were to add that to Oxfam’s metrics, inequality would look much, much worse.

[…]

It’s time we face up to the imbalances that distort our global economy. There’s nothing natural about extreme inequality. It is man-made. It has to do with power. And we need to have the courage to say so.

HOLMBERG, Susan, “Inequality isn’t just bad for the economy – it’s toxic for the environment”, Grist, July 5, 2015. Cf.: http://grist.org/politics/inequality-isnt-just-bad-for-the-economy-its-toxic-for-the-environment/

“[…], to build on the pope and environmental justice movement’s message that economic inequality and environmental quality are linked, it is important to point out that the relationship between the economy and environment goes both ways. We’ve become more aware that environmental damage can be especially bad for poor people and people of color. What is less obvious is that high economic inequality – in the case of the United States, we’re almost at pre-Great Depression levels – is also bad for our environment.

Economist James Boyce argues that, because wealth ultimately converts into political power, a society with high levels of wealth and income inequality leaves those at the bottom less able to resist the powerful interests that benefit from pollution. That’s consistent with the environmental justice movement’s message, but Boyce takes it further by arguing, ‘the total magnitude of environmental harm depends on the extent of inequality. Societies with wider inequalities of wealth and power tend to have more environmental harm.’”

HOW CANADA PERFORMS, “World Income Inequality”, The Conference Board of Canada, 2011. Cf.: http://www.conferenceboard.ca/hcp/hot-topics/worldinequality.aspx#top

At the 2011 World Economic Forum in Davos, income inequality and corruption were singled out as the two most serious challenges facing the world.1 Zhu Min, a special adviser at the International Monetary Fund, told delegates that “the increase in inequality is the most serious challenge for the world. . . . I don’t think the world is paying enough attention.”2

And in a recent keynote address to an OECD policy forum on income inequality, Richard Freeman, professor of economics at Harvard University, noted that “the triumph of globalization and market capitalism has improved living standards for billions while concentrating billions among the few. It has lowered inequality worldwide but raised inequality within most countries.”3

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Is Freeman correct? Is income becoming more concentrated among a relatively small group of people? And if so, what are the consequences for the starndard of living of the many, today and in the years ahead?

IGUÍÑIZ ECHEVERRÍA, Javier, “Milanović, Branko. La era de las desigualdades. Dimensiones de la desigualdad internacional y global”, Economía (Lima: Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú), Vol. XXIX, n.º 57-58, junio-diciembre de 2006, pp. 281-287. Cf.: http://revistas.pucp.edu.pe/index.php/economia/article/view/292/285

INEQUALITY ORGANIZATION, “Global Inequality”, Inequality.org, 2016. Cf.: ♦♦♦♦♦

http://inequality.org/global-inequality/

Tracking levels of world inequality can pose a variety of statistical challenges for researchers. Different nations, for starters, tally income and wealth in different ways, and some nations barely tally reliable stats at all. But researchers worldwide are increasingly taking on these challenges and below these charts we provide information on some of the most valuable data sources.

[See also: Books on Inequality: http://inequality.org/books-inequality/]

JENKIN, Samuel, “The Economic Debate on Inequality: Past, Present and Future”, International Journal of Business and Social Science, Vol. 2, n.º 18, October 2011, pp. 46-56. Cf.: http://ijbssnet.com/journals/Vol_2_No_18_October_2011/7.pdf

The 2006 World Development Report Equity and Development included a shift in the raison d’etre of the World Bank. No longer simply satisfied with reducing poverty and working towards the establishment of economic environments fostering growth, the Bank firmly identified the importance of equity in the development process. It did this in two ways: 1) directly linking equity to poverty reduction, and 2) placing primary emphasis on the equality of opportunities over the equality of outcomes. This paper presents a historical review of inequality literature in the economic sphere in order to examine the evidence supporting the World Bank’s changed approach. It articulates the important shifts that have occurred over time and highlights ongoing debates within the economic professions concerning the importance of equality for development and economic growth. It also identifies the debate which followed the Report’s release and assesses the impact for future research directions.

KNAUSS, Steve, “The Myth of the Global Middle Class”, Potemkin Review, December 2015. Cf.: http://www.potemkinreview.com/the-myth-of-the-global-middle-class.html

The hype surrounding the growth of the newly minted “global middle class” has reached fever pitch in the last few years. Over half the world will be middle class by 2030, predicts the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in its report on “the Rise of the South.” [1] The Economist, not known to be shy, claims we’re already there, thanks to “today’s new bourgeoisie of some 2.5 billion people” across the global South that have become middle class since 1990. [2] The OECD, perhaps the boldest of all, postulates that India – currently one of the poorest countries on earth – could find more than 90 percent of its population joining this “global middle class” within 30 years, from around 5 or 10 percent today [3].

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What is the basis of this enthusiasm; where does it come from?

KARIN, Elizabeth, “Review of Branko Milanović, The Haves and Have-Nots: A Brief and Idiosyncratic History of Global Inequality, The Journal of Philosophical Economics, Vol. 2, Issue 2, Spring 2012, pp. 141-143. Cf.: http://jpe.ro/pdf.php?id=2918

The author’s explanations rely exclusively on the terminology that he defines within each chapter, and while this results in an appreciatively accessible discourse, some of the existing critiques of these theories are not introduced. Though the book is intended as an introduction to the dialogue of inequality, it is important to include the imperfections inherent in some of the content discussed. For example, Milanović’s use of the Gini coefficient in his discussion is pervasive, accurately reflecting the importance of the coefficient in the international discussion. The Gini coefficient, however, has real shortcomings in its representation of the percentage of populations within countries actually living in poverty; countries with the same Gini coefficient can have very different income distributions. This fact is not given enough attention; therefore a reader without any previous exposure to the term is not introduced to the limitations of the measurement and with what critical considerations it should be interpreted.

KENWORTHY,Lane, “Is Income Inequality harmful?”, lanekenworthy.net, September 2015. Cf.: https://lanekenworthy.net/is-income-inequality-harmful/

A generation ago, perhaps even just a few years ago, worry about high or rising income inequality stemmed mainly from a belief that it is unfair. In recent years the source of apprehension has shifted. The dominant concern now is that inequality may have harmful effects on a range of outcomes we value, from education to health to economic growth to happiness to democracy and more. Does it?

SUNDARAM, Kwame Jomo and Vladimir POPOV, Income Inequalities in Perspective, Geneva: International Labour Organization (ILO), May 2015, pp. 12 (Initiative for Policy Dialogue and International Labour Organization Paper). Cf.: http://policydialogue.org/files/publications/Inequalities_in_Perspective_neo.pdf

Income and wealth inequalities in most countries – in the West, the former ‘communist’ economies and in the developing world – have been on the rise in the last three decades with some notable exceptions. Inequalities in the 19th century (Figure 1) were much higher than before the Industrial Revolution. Following the rise of workers’ movements in the West and the 1917 Bolshevik revolution, the growth of inequalities of the previous century was reversed for over half a century until the 1980s as the threat of the spread of communism inspired welfarist redistributive reforms, giving capitalism a more human face. Such checks and balances have been greatly weakened in recent decades, even though improved economic performance in many developing countries, including sub-Saharan Africa in the last decade, contributed to some convergence of incomes between rich and poor countries.

LAKNER, Christoph, “Global income distribution: From the fall of the Berlin Wall to the Great Recession”, Vox, 27 May, 2014. Cf.: http://voxeu.org/article/global-income-distribution-1988

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Since 1988, rapid growth in Asia has lifted billions out of poverty. Incomes at the very top of the world income distribution have also grown rapidly, whereas median incomes in rich countries have grown much more slowly. This column asks whether these developments, while reducing global income inequality overall, might undermine democracy in rich countries.

LANE, Charles, “The Sanders-Pope Francis ‘moral economy’ could hurt the income inequality fight”, The Washington Post, April 13, 2016. Cf.:https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-sanders-pope-francis-moral-economy-could-hurt-the-income-inequality-fight/2016/04/13/8007b80a-01ae-11e6-9203-7b8670959b88_story.html

Democratic socialist presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) will depart soon for the Vatican, where he’ll speak at the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, a previously obscure body whose ideological leanings are implied by the invitations it extended to Sanders and two other headliners, the left-wing populist presidents of Bolivia and Ecuador.

In keeping with Pope Francis’s call for a “moral economy,” Sanders has said he’ll discuss “how we address the massive levels of wealth and income inequality that exist around the world, how we deal with unemployment, how we deal with poverty and how we create an economy that works for all people rather than the few.”

LANSLEY, Stewart, “Talk is not enough: tackling inequality is now an economic imperative”, Poverty and Social Exclusion, May 6, 2015. Cf.: http://www.poverty.ac.uk/editorial/talk-not-enough-tackling-inequality-now-economic-imperative

If we are to build a fairer and more sustainable economic model, the distribution question needs to be restored to the heart of economic management. Economies built around poverty wages and huge corporate and private surpluses are unsustainable. In that sense, restoring the balance between wages and profits, and cutting the great income divide, is not just a matter of social justice and proportionality it is an economic imperative. As long as national economic cakes are divided so unevenly, economies will continue to slide from crisis to crisis.

LECHNER, Frank J. and John BOLI (Eds.), The Globalization Reader, 5th edition, Massachusetts (USA) – Oxford (UK): Wiley Blackwell, 2015, pp. 624. Cf.: http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-111873355X.html https://books.google.fr/books?id=ph3VBAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&hl=fr&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

♦ Completely revised and updated, the fifth edition of this well-regarded textbook charts key topics and recent research in globalization along with the latest complexities and controversies in the field.

♦ Includes a new section on globalization and identity and new readings on global inequality, mental illness, structural violence, microfinance, blood diamonds, world citizenship, the global justice movement, and sumo wrestling

♦ Contains essential, thought-provoking readings by prominent scholars, activists, and organizations on the many dimensions of globalization, from political and economic issues to cultural and experiential ones

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♦ Examines foundational topics, such as the experience of globalization, economic and political globalization, the role of media and religion in cultural globalization, women’s rights, environmentalism, global civil society, and the alternative globalization movement

♦ Retains the helpful student features from prior editions, including an accessible format, concise introductions to major topics, stimulating examples, and discussion questions for each selection and section.

LEES, Nicholas, Global Inequality, Moral Argument and the Changing Coordinates of North-South Relations. Paper presented at the ECPR Conference August 2011, Reykjavik as part of the Panel ‘Middle Range and Embedded Ethical Issues: Connecting Empirical World and Normative Debates’ under the Section ‘Just Peace Governance’, pp. 28. Draft. Cf.: https://ecpr.eu/Filestore/PaperProposal/a99b6036-1bbf-4296-a167-b725b404048f.pdf

In recent years, the empirical study of the politics of international inequality and the analysis of its ethical implications have become estranged.

This paper will argue that it is possible to reclaim the evacuated space for middle range normative enquiry. Within the contemporary international order, deep structural inequalities coexist alongside a nominally pluralistic society of states which grants international personality to politically organised communities.

In this context the actual international politics of inequality have taken the format of repeated challenges by the political representatives of the global South to the dominance of the advanced industrialised North.

The normative dimensions of this process can be understood through a focus on this process of argument between unequals. Political argument is the normative contestation over the authoritative principles appropriate to govern a sphere of social interaction. Argument necessarily operates on a plane between pure moral principle and outright realpolitik.

This paper will demonstrate that changes in patterns of normative belief, relative material power and forms of political organisation have historically shaped the terrain on which argument between North and South has taken place. This has given rise to a succession of normative orders characterised by different moral relations between unequals within the international system.

Analysing the course of political argument over global inequality allows us to understand the moral possibilities and limits of alternative normative orders, revealing the true ethical and political challenges posed by global inequalities and the space for normative change.

MACEWAN, Arthur, “Inequality in the World”, Dollars&Sense, November/December 2014. Cf.: http://dollarsandsense.org/archives/2014/1114macewan.html

Dear Dr. Dollar:

I had thought that neoliberal globalization was making the world more unequal. But recently I have seen claims that the distribution of income in the world has become more equal. Is this true ? –Evan Swinerton, Brookline, Mass.

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The answer to these questions depends on what you mean by “in the world.” In many countries in the world–including most of the high-income countries and the most populous lower-income countries–the distribution of income has become more unequal. If we look at the income differences among countries, however, the situation has become more equal because per capita income has generally increased more rapidly in lower-income countries than in higher-income countries–but with important exceptions. And if we look at income distribution among all the people in the world–accounting for inequality both within and between countries–it seems that in recent decades the very high degree of inequality has remained about the same. (Before proceeding, please see the warning in the box below.)

MALERBA, Daniele, “Would increased migration reduce global inequality?” Manchester (The University of Manchester Global Development Institute), March 24, 2016. Cf.: http://blog.gdi.manchester.ac.uk/would-increased-migration-reduce-global-inequality/

Inequality is a topic of major interest nowadays, with recent reports showing that the richest 62 individuals possess more wealth than the bottom half of the global population. But this attention has not always been there.

One the main drivers of this new “inequality movement” has been the recent recession, coupled with the stagnant incomes of the middle classes. But Branko Milanović, one of the pioneers of this movement, discussed also the importance of data improvements in the recent trend of inequality analysis.

During a masterclass with PhD students at the Global Development Institute, he argued that the increased availability of household level data has been impressive. This is especially true for Africa where the coverage rate increased by more than 20% in the last 20 years. Current advancements in the availability of data also includes: fiscal information to complement household surveys, the use of top incomes in inequality estimates (as they are not represented in common household surveys) and information on inequality of wealth. Improvements in the amount of information available is also helping to develop new fields of inquiry, such as the concept of inequality of opportunities as opposed to inequality of outcomes, the decomposition of inequality and growth, and historical inequalities.

Moreover, the increased coverage of data and the effects of globalisation, has enabled the study of global inequality, the inequality between all individuals in the world, regardless of country. In his public lecture, Milanović, who has been assembling data from different countries in order to build a global income distribution, explained his findings and the policy implication for some of today’s main issues, such as migration and the future of the middle class.

MALONEY, Thomas N., “The haves and the Have-Nots: A Brief and Idiosyncratic History of Global Inequality”, EH.net (Economic History), December 2011. Cf.: https://eh.net/book_reviews/the-haves-and-the-have-nots-a-brief-and-idiosyncratic-history-of-global-inequality/

With the emergence of the “Occupy” movement in the Fall of 2011, the issue of income inequality has gained an unusually prominent place in the political conversation in the United States. The discussion of inequality has always been present to some degree, especially during the past 30 years or so as inequality has

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grown by a variety of measures. Still, the American public lately appears to be engaged with issues of distribution in a newly vigorous, if not always rigorous, way.

MANTILLA, Diego, “Equality and Sustainability: Can We Have Both?” countercurrents.org, July 4, 2016. Cf.: http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/07/04/equality-and-sustainability-can-we-have-both/

Recently, in this blog, Jacopo Simonetta raised a very important question: Would a fairer distribution of income worldwide diminish the damage humans are doing to the earth? His answer, that it would not and would actually make matters much worse, intrigued me. So, I decided to look at the best available data.

MATT, Philips, “The Hidden Economics behind the rise of Donald Trump”, Quartz, March 01, 2016. Cf.: http://qz.com/626076/the-hidden-economics-behind-the-rise-of-donald-trump/

Milanović, currently at the Luxembourg Income Study Center at the City University of New York, visited Quartz to talk about his book and its implications, including the decline of the US middle class, why the Black Death leveled the economic playing field, and the rise of Donald J. Trump. Here are edited excerpts of our conversation.

McELWEE, Sean, “On Income Inequality: An Interview with Branco Milanović”, Demos, November 14, 2014. Cf.: http://www.demos.org/blog/11/14/14/income-inequality-interview-branko-milanovic

Sean McElwee: You’ve been researching inequality for a long time. Inequality as a topic, for a while, was very unpopular. How has the way that inequality is discussed changed in the last decade?

Branko Milanović: Well, yes, I’ve been researching inequality, income inequality to be precise, for many years. One could even argue that since the late 1970s to early 1980s it was a topic that had no particular appeal to economists. That is, until five to six years ago.

SM: So then, what happened to change this?

Branko Milanović: What happened is, I think, first and foremost, the recession. Secondly, the mainstream economics became discredited, not because it could not predict or prevent the crisis, but because it was actually saying, until the very last moment, that the crisis cannot and will not happen.

MELLONI, Nicola, “Why Global Inequality Matters”, Social Europe, 18 March 2016. Cf.: https://www.socialeurope.eu/2016/03/why-global-inequality-matters/

Let me start by enquiring about the importance assumed by inequality in the public debate during these last years. As we know, inequality has been marginalised both in academia and in politics – also and especially on the left, which should have been the most sensitive to social issues. Then, all at once, with the outbreak of the crisis, inequality has assumed a central role that was, until very recently, unpredictable. Newspapers talk about it, and it is even a topic of discussion among the Democratic candidates to the White House. What do you think has changed?

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MILLS, Melinda, “Globalization and Inequality”, European Sociological Review, Volume 25, Number 1, 2009, pp. 1-8. Cf.: http://www.rug.nl/research/portal/files/10378100/2009-MillsM-Globalization.pdf

Globalization is increasingly linked to inequality, but with often divergent and polarized findings. Some researchers show that globalization accentuates inequality both within and between countries. Others maintain that these claims are patently incorrect, arguing that globalization has disintegrated national borders and prompted economic integration, lifting millions out of poverty, and closing the inequality gap. This article presents a review of current research that links globalization to inequality. Core problems behind contradictory findings appear to rest in the operationalization of inequality and globalization, availability and quality of data, population-weighted versus unweighted estimates; and, the method of income calibration to a common currency in the study of income inequality.

A theoretical model charts the mechanisms linking globalization to inequality, illustrating how it generates increased inequality within industrialized nations and decreased inequality within developing economies. The article concludes with a description of the papers in this special issue and situates them within the broader literature.

NATIONAL CENTER FOR BIOTECHONOLOGY INFORMATION, “Can Earth’s and Society’s Systems Meet the Needs of 10 billion people? Summary of a Workshop. 6 Resource Distribution and Global Inequality”, ncbi.nlm.nih.gov, 2014. Cf.: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK253872/

The session on Resource Distribution and Global Inequality was chaired by steering committee member B.L. Turner II (Arizona State University), with presentations by Branko Milanović (World Bank), Parfait Eloundou-Enyegue (Cornell University), and Wolfgang Lutz (International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis). Their presentations and the ensuing discussion are summarized below.

NEL, Philip, Review article: “The Return of Inequality”, Third World Quaterly, Vol. 27, n.º 4, 2006, pp. 689-706. Cf.: http://www.ecineq.org/milano/WP/ECINEQ2006-44.pdf

Inequality, Growth, and Poverty in an Era of Liberalization and Globalization G. A. Cornia (Ed.) Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Inequality in Latin America and the Carribbean: Breaking with History? D. de Ferranti, G. Perry, F. Ferreira, & M. Walton, Washington, DC: World Bank Latin American and Caribbean Studies, The World Bank, 2004

Worlds Apart: Measuring International and Global Inequality B. Milanović, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005.

Equity and Development: World Development Report 2006 World Bank New York: The World Bank and Oxford University Press, 2005.

University of Texas Inequality Project (UTIP) Under the leadership of Prof. James K. Galbraith http://utip.gov.utexas.edu/

While the study of economic inequality is still much of a Cinderella field in Economics, and takes up only a minuscule part of the attention of sociologists and

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political scientists, there are signs that this neglect is changing significantly, and rapidly so.

Over the past decade there has been a sharp increase in the intensity with which academics and practitioners are engaging with the skewed distribution of income, wealth and economic opportunity in general.

New theoretical approaches spearheaded by Amartya Sen and others since the early 1990s, the emergence of more comprehensive sets of data on income distribution in particular, and growing public and specialized concerns about the distributional effect of processes of globalisation, have combined to put economic inequality squarely back in the academic and public focus.

In the new century inequality studies have become something of an academic growth industry: since the turn of the century there have been major world conferences on the theme, the creation of a specialised journal and a specialised academic association, many papers and journal articles, and a number of major single- and multi-author books, reports and edited collections.

In 2004 and 2005 alone four major studies on the subject saw the light of day. These, plus an important web-based source of information on economic inequality form the focus of this review article.

But why is economic inequality a problem?

NOLAN, Hamilton, “Global Inequality Explained by Branko Milanović”, 6-03-2016. Cf.: http://gawker.com/global-inequality-explained-by-branko-milanovic-1780110436

Globally, inequality is falling. You may not have known that, because within countries, inequality is rising. We live in dangerous times. Why? We talked to the man who wrote the book on it.

NORDHAUS, William D., “The Pope & the Market”, The New York Review of Books, October 8, 2015. [Laudato Si’: On care for Our Commont Home, and encyclical letter by Pope Francis, Vatican Press, pp. 184 (available at w2.vatican.va). Cf.: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2015/10/08/pope-and-market/

Pope Francis’s encyclical on the environment and capitalism, Laudato Si’, is an eloquent description of the natural world and its relationship to human societies.1 An appreciation of its poetic and epic qualities is completely absent from secondhand accounts, most of which are devoted to explaining why the pope got it right (about climate science) or wrong (about climate science). In reading the encyclical, one senses the struggle of an ancient institution, immersed in its doctrine and history, slowly and incompletely adapting to modern science. Most commentaries have focused on the pope’s endorsement of climate science, but my focus here is primarily on the social sciences, particularly economics.

NORTHRUP, Chip, “The Fuzzy Math on Wealth Inequality”, No Fracking Way, June 29, 2016. Cf.: http://www.nofrackingway.us/2016/06/29/the-fuzzy-math-on-wealth-inequality/

Headlines that proclaim “63 families own half of the wealth” may be statistically true but they ignore the fact that, world-wide, the plurality of families have no net worth or a negative net worth; they’re in debt. So the statistical base of the wealth pyramid is made up of millions / billions of ZEROs. 

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All those zeros skew the statistics in favor of anyone that has any net worth. Meaning, if you had a net worth of $100,000, you’d be worth more than millions of families in America or the 3rd world that have, collectively, no net worth.

What can we infer from that?

A more appropriate metric is income inequality – how much people are paid, particularly salaries in corporations. That’s a normalized metric that excludes zeros (slaves?) at the bottom. And is something that can be dealt with more directly via the tax code and better corporate governance.

The disparity between income inequality and wealth inequality is the wage rate and the savings rate. The poor cannot make enough or save enough – or invest enough – to get off the statistical floor. Hence all the zeros, negatives and near zeros at the bottom.

ORTIZ, Isabel, Global Inequality: Beyond the Bottom Billion. A Rapid Review of Income Distribution in 141 Countries, New York: United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), April 2011, pp. 65 (Social and Economic Policy Working Paper). Cf.: http://www.unicef.org/socialpolicy/files/Global_Inequality.pdf

This working paper: (i) provides an overview of global, regional and national income inequalities based on the latest distribution data from the World Bank, UNU-WIDER and Eurostat; (ii) discusses the negative implications of rising income inequality for development; (iii) calls for placing equity at the center of development in the context of the United Nations development agenda; (iv) describes the likelihood of inequalities being exacerbated during the global economic crisis; (v) advocates for urgent policy changes at national and international levels to ensure a “Recovery for All”; and, (vi) to serve as a general reference source, Annex 2 provides a summary of the most up-to-date income distribution and inequality data for 141 countries.

OSSA, Felipe, “The Economist Who Brought You Thomas Piketty Sees ‘Perfect Storm’ of Inequality Ahead”, New York News & Politics, March 24, 2016. Cf.: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/03/milanovic-millennial-on-millennial-war-is-next.html#

Branko Milanović has spent decades studying income inequality. During most of his 20 years as a lead economist at the World Bank, he says, “even the word inequality was not politically acceptable, because it seemed like something wild or socialist or whatever.” That began to change a few years ago, thanks in part to Milanović, who helped introduce the English-speaking world to Capital in the Twenty-First Century, by Thomas Piketty, with a widely circulated 20-page review   months before it went on sale in the U.S. in 2014. Since then, inequality has become a buzzword, and a central issue of the American presidential campaign. 

OXFAM, “Methodology note to accompany ‘An Economy for the 1%: How privile and power in the economy drive extreme inequality and how this can be stopped”, Oxfam.com, January 2015, Oxfam Technical Briefing. Cf.: https://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/file_attachments/tb-economy-one-percent-methodology-180116-en.pdf

This methodology note provides the background to some of the key statistics in the report. The underlying data is also available on Oxfam’s website

OXFAM, “62 people own the same as half the world, reveals Oxfam Davos report”, OXFAM International, 18 January 2016. Cf.:

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https://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressreleases/2016-01-18/62-people-own-same-half-world-reveals-oxfam-davos-report

The Oxfam report An Economy for the 1%, shows that the wealth of the poorest half of the world’s population has fallen by a trillion dollars since 2010, a drop of 38 percent. This has occurred despite the global population increasing by around 400 million people during that period. Meanwhile, the wealth of the richest 62 has increased by more than half a trillion dollars to $1.76tr. The report also shows how women are disproportionately affected by inequality – of the current ‘62’, 53 are men and just nine are women.

Although world leaders have increasingly talked about the need to tackle inequality, and in September agreed a global goal to reduce it, the gap between the richest and the rest has widened dramatically in the past 12 months. Oxfam’s prediction, made ahead of last year’s Davos, that the 1% would soon own more than the rest of us, actually came true in 2015 - a year earlier than expected.

OXFAM, “62 personas poseen la misma riqueza que la mitad de la población mundial”, OXFAM international, 18 de enero de 2016. Cf.: https://www.oxfam.org/es/sala-de-prensa/notas-de-prensa/2016-01-18/62-personas-poseen-la-misma-riqueza-que-la-mitad-de-la

El informe de Oxfam, llamado Una economía al servicio del 1%, pone de relieve que, desde 2010, la riqueza de la mitad más pobre de la población se ha reducido en un billón de dólares, lo que supone una caída del 38%. Esto ha ocurrido a pesar de que la población mundial ha crecido en cerca de 400 millones de personas durante el mismo período. Mientras, la riqueza de las 62 personas más ricas del planeta ha aumentado en más de 500.000 millones de dólares, hasta alcanzar la cifra de 1,76 billones de dólares. El informe también muestra cómo la desigualdad afecta de manera desproporcionada a las mujeres; de las 62 personas más ricas del mundo, 53 son hombres y tan solo 9 son mujeres.

A pesar de que los líderes mundiales hablan cada vez más de la necesidad de abordar la desigualdad y en septiembre fijaron un objetivo mundial para reducirla, la realidad es que la brecha entre los más ricos y el resto de la población ha aumentado de manera drástica a lo largo de los últimos doce meses. La predicción que Oxfam realizó antes de la reunión de Davos del año pasado, de que en poco tiempo el 1% poseería más riqueza que el resto de la población mundial, se ha cumplido en 2015, un año antes de lo esperado.

OXFAM, “62 personnes possèdent autant que la moitié de la population mondiale”, OXFAM international, 18 de enero de 2016. Cf.: https://www.oxfam.org/fr/salle-de-presse/communiques/2016-01-18/62-personnes-possedent-autant-que-la-moitie-de-la-population

Intitulé «   Une économie au service des 1   %   » , ce rapport montre que le patrimoine de la moitié la plus pauvre de la population mondiale s’est réduit de mille milliards de dollars depuis 2010. Cette baisse de 38 % s’est produite alors même que la population mondiale augmentait de 400 millions de personnes. Dans le même temps, le patrimoine des 62 premières fortunes mondiales a augmenté de plus de 500 milliards de dollars pour atteindre un total de 1 760 milliards. Le rapport montre également que les inégalités frappent les femmes de manière disproportionnée, avec seulement neuf femmes contre 53 hommes parmi ces grandes fortunes.

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Les dirigeant-e-s du monde parlent de plus en plus de la nécessité de lutter contre les inégalités et, en septembre dernier, ils se sont fixé l’objectif de les réduire. Pourtant, l’écart entre la frange la plus riche et le reste de la population s’est creusé de façon spectaculaire au cours des douze derniers mois. À la veille de la rencontre de Davos de l’an dernier, Oxfam avait prédit que les 1 % posséderaient plus que le reste du monde en 2016. Cette prédiction s’est en fait réalisée dès 2015 : un an plus tôt.

OXFAM, An Economy for the 1%. How privilege and power in the economy drive extreme inequality and how this can be stopped, Oxfam International, 18 January 2016, pp. 44 (201 Oxfam Briefing Paper). Cf.:https://www.oxfam.org/en/research/economy-1

OXFAM, Una economía al servicio del 1%. Acabar con los privilegios y la concentración de poder para frenar la desigualdad extrema, Oxfam International, 18 de enero de 2016, pp. 44 (210 Informe de Oxfam). Cf.:https://www.oxfam.org/es/informes/una-economia-al-servicio-del-1

OXFAM, “Une économie au service des 1%. Ou comment le pouvoir et les privilèges dans l’économie exacerbent les inégalités extrêmes et comment y mettre un terme”, Oxfam International, 18 janvier 2016, pp. 52 (210 Note d’Information d’ Oxfam). Cf.:https://www.oxfam.org/fr/rapports/une-economie-au-service-des-1

PIERCE, Fred, “Inequality declared one of the biggest economic, social and political challenges of our time”, CGIAR (Research Program on Water, Land and Ecosystems), August 2013. Cf.: https://wle.cgiar.org/thrive/2013/07/23/inequality-declared-one-biggest-economic-social-and-political-challenges-our-time

Inequality is back.  Not the fact of it, of course.  The startling and frankly criminal scale of income disparities between citizens in the global economy have been growing larger for more than a generation now.  But, for most of that time, the word itself was a no-no among politicians and economists.  As if, by not speaking it, they could make it go away.

PIZZIGATI, Sam, “A Kerfuffle Over Global Wealth Stats”, Inquelity.org, January 28, 2015. Cf.:

http://inequality.org/kerfuffle-over-stats/

Oxfam’s latest analysis of world wealth, Wealth: Having It All and Wanting More, went on to add an even more startling stat: If current trends continue, the world’s top 1 percent will have more wealth than all the rest of the world combined by the end of next year.

These incredibly dramatic figures promptly made headlines everywhere – and almost just as quickly drew some prominent pushback. Two of the world’s top policy wonks – Felix Salmon of Reuters and former Washington Post analyst Ezra Klein, now of Vox – came out with columns that sought to shoot the new Oxfam numbers down.

Oxfam’s statistical case, charged Klein, “has deep flaws.” Oxfam, Salmon pounded out on his keyboard, was engaging in “a silly and pointless exercise.”

[…]

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But the best defense of the Oxfam analysis may actually have come from outside Oxfam’s ranks, from Branko Milanović, the City of New York Graduate Center scholar who formerly served as the World Bank’s lead research economist.

PLANEL, Niels, “Le Gini hors de la bouteille: Entretien avec Branko Milanović”, Sens Public, 23 novembre 2011. Entretien réalisé et traduit de l’anglais par Nielw PLANEL. Cf.: http://www.sens-public.org/article886.html  

Résumé : Branko Milanović compte sans doute parmi les spécialistes des inégalités les plus importants sur la scène internationale. Économiste à la Banque mondiale, il se penche sur les questions des disparités depuis plusieurs décennies.

Dans son livre paru cette année, The Haves and the Have-Nots (Les nantis et les indigents), il réussit le tour de force de rendre accessibles au plus grand nombre des idées complexes sur les inégalités entre les individus, entre les pays, et entre les citoyens du monde dans un style attrayant. Pour ce faire, l’auteur illustre ses propos au travers de petites histoires (des « vignettes ») audacieuses et d’une incroyable originalité, dans lesquelles il répond à des questions fascinantes : les Romains prospères étaient-ils comparativement plus riches que les super riches d’aujourd’hui ? Dans quel arrondissement de Paris valait-il mieux vivre au 13e siècle, et qu’en est-il aujourd’hui ? Sur l’échelle de la redistribution du revenu au Kenya, où se situait le grand-père de Barack Obama ? Est-ce que le lieu de naissance influence le salaire que vous aurez au long d’une vie, et si oui, comment ? Qu’a gagné Anna Karénine à tomber amoureuse ? La Chine survivra-t-elle au mitan du siècle ? Qui a été la personne la plus riche au monde ?

Reprenant également les travaux de Vilfredo Pareto, Karl Marx, Alexis de Tocqueville, John Rawls ou Simon Kuznets à une époque où la question des inégalités préoccupe de plus en plus, son ouvrage fait le pari d’éclairer un enjeu aussi ancien que passionnant. Branko Milanović a accepté de répondre aux questions de Sens Public.

PLANEL, Niels, “The Gini out of the bottle. An interview with Branko Milanović”, Sens Public, 23 November 2011. Entretien réalisé et traduit de l’anglais par Nielw PLANEL. Cf.:http://www.sens-public.org/article887.html

Abstract : Branko Milanović is one of the leading world specialists on inequality. An economist at the World Bank, he’s been dealing with issues related to income distribution for decades.

In a book published this year, The Haves and the Have-Nots, he manages to make complex ideas about inequalities within individuals, nations and globally accessible to a wide audience. In it, his essays on these topics are illustrated by audacious and very original « vignettes » in which he answers fascinating and diverse questions such as : Were affluent Romans comparatively richer than today’s super riches ? Does the place where you are born influence the revenue you will generate over a lifetime? What did Anna Karenina get for falling in love? Will China survive by the mid-century? Who has the richest person in the world been?

Feeding his reflections with the findings of Vilfredo Pareto, Karl Marx, Alexis de Tocqueville, John Rawls or Simon Kuznets at a time when the issue of inequality has become so important, his book enlightens us on a topic that is both ancient and captivating. Branko Milanović has answered Sens Public’s questions.

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POGGE, Thomas, “Are We Violating the Human Rights of the World’s Poor? Responses to Four Critics”, Yale Human Rights and Development Journal, Vol. 17, n.º 1, 2014, pp. 74-87. Cf.: http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1122&context=yhrdlj

Stimulated by the challenging reactions of four critics, this essay clarifies and elaborates a view I had laid out in an earlier issue of this Journal.1 I will begin with a brief summary account and defense of my main thesis and will then expand on various aspects of it by engaging my critics one by one.

The topic of my inquiry can be defined through three distinctions. The first distinction concerns the different ways in which individual and collective agents can be related to unfulfilled human rights. Here, first, a human rights deficit may lie beyond an agent‘s capacities. In such cases, the agent bears no responsibility for the deficit (insofar as it lies in the past) and has no responsibilities in regard to it (insofar as it lies in the future). Second, an agent may have the capacity to diminish a human rights deficit and may then bear some responsibility for it (by virtue of neglecting a positive duty to reduce it) or have a responsibility to alleviate it. Third, an agent may have a role in bringing about a human rights deficit and may then (by virtue of violating a negative duty not to harm) bear some responsibility for it or have a responsibility not to contribute to it in the future. I call all and only such active contributions to the nonfulfillment of human rights, when they are foreseeable and reasonably avoidable by the agent, human rights violations. And I focus on cases of this kind, in part because I share the common view that, holding fixed what is at stake for the agent and for others, negative duties not to violate human rights are more stringent than positive duties to alleviate human rights deficits.

PORTER, Eduardo, “Q. and A.: Development Expert on Narrowing Inequality”, The New York Times, March 18, 2014. Cf.:http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/03/18/qa-a-development-expert-on-narrowing-inequality/?_r=0

Professor Milanović, now at the City University of New York’s Graduate Center, was for many years a development expert at the World Bank. In his 2011 book, “The Haves and the Have-Nots,” he noted how inequality between countries was much larger than within them. Sixty percent of a person’s income is determined by where a person was born.

Global development may be changing that, however: While income inequality soared in the United States and other countries over the last two decades, the disparity of income between countries declined. Measured worldwide, income inequality appears to be slightly lower than it was 20 years ago.

RENSBURG, Dewald Van, “Oxfam and the argument around inequality”, City Press, 24-01-2016. Cf.: http://city-press.news24.com/Business/oxfam-and-the-argument-around-inequality-20160124

International advocacy group Oxfam this week produced a report on global inequality to coincide with the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, triggering a backlash from a variety of free market think-tanks and professional commentators worldwide.

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Oxfam’s major claim is that the 62 richest billionaires have as much wealth as the bottom 50% of the human race combined: about $1.75 trillion (R28.8 trillion).

Apart from attacking that number, detractors also claim that rising global inequality is in fact acceptable, as long as poverty rates are also falling.

RIO, Cédric, “Branko Milanović: ‘Les inégalités de revenus entre les populations du monde diminuent depuis le début des années 2000’”, Inequality Watch, 28 février 2012. http://www.inequalitywatch.eu/spip.php?article101&id_mot=21

ROINE, Jespert, “Global Inequality – What Do We Mean and What Do We Know?” http://freepolicybriefs.org/2016/04/24/global-inequality-mean-know/

In recent years, the distribution of income and wealth has emerged as one of the most widely discussed issues in societies everywhere. US President Barack Obama has called rising income inequality the “defining challenge of our time”, the topic has been on the agenda at meetings of the World Economic Forum in Davos, and studies by the IMF and the OECD (e.g., OECD, 2014, and IMF, 2014) have associated income inequality with lower economic growth. Thomas Piketty’s best selling book “Capital in the Twenty-First Century” (2014) has placed the topic center-stage well outside academic and expert circles. At the same time, some have argued that all the talk about increasing inequality is in fact wrong and that it misses what they perceive as the more important story, namely, the decreasing global inequality. So, which is it, and what conclusions can be drawn?

ROSER, Max, “ Income Inequality. Empirical View”, OurWorldIinData.org, 2016. Cf.: https://ourworldindata.org/income-inequality/

One way of studying pre-industrial inequality is to study the inequality of living standards (for this see the entry on health inequality). But one can also study economic inequality directly. Milanović, Lindert and Williamson published a number of these estimates in their 2008 paper ‘Ancient Inequality’. Most of their estimates (18 of the 28) of pre-industrial inequalities are based on so-called ‘social tables’. In these tables, social classes (or groups) ‘are ranked from the richest to the poorest with their estimated population shares and average incomes’.1

These social tables are not always reliable sources for the distribution of incomes, as Holmes has shown for one of the most famous tables: Gregory King’s Social Table for England in 1688. Holmes (1977) showed King’s limitations as a social analyst and critisices his social table arguing that various biases “beguiled him (1) into underestimating the number of families in some of the wealthiest, and fiscally most productive classes; and (2) into underestimating quite (sometimes grossly) income levels at many rungs above the poverty line.”2

ROZWORSKI, Michal, “Branko Milanović on inequality and the new global plutocracy”, Michal Rozworski, March 25, 2015. Cf.: http://rozworski.org/political-eh-conomy/2015/03/25/branko-milanovic-on-inequality-and-the-new-global-plutocracy/

Last week I interviewed Branko Milanović, one of the world’s foremost authorities on inequality. Our conversation moved freely from global trends in inequality over the past quarter-century to the rise of a new plutocracy and the threat it poses to democratic governance. I thought it worthwhile to transcribe our chat in full.

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RUCCIO, David, “Globalization, Inequality and Imperialism”, Real-World Economics Review Blog, July 4, 2016. Cf.: https://rwer.wordpress.com/2016/07/04/globalization-inequality-and-imperialism/

We need to fundamentally reject our “free trade” policies and move to fair trade. Americans should not have to compete against workers in low-wage countries who earn pennies an hour. We must defeat the Trans-Pacific Partnership. We must help poor countries develop sustainable economic models.

Sanders’s critique is buttressed by the conclusion of the latest report from the Economic Policy Institute, that the gaps between the richest and poorest families have grown in every state in the country since the late 1970s, as well as Oxfam’s analysis of growing inequality across the globe, summarized in the fact that the richest 1 percent have now accumulated more wealth than the rest of the world put together.

The case against the unequalizing dynamic of capitalist globalization couldn’t be clearer.

SALMON, Felix, “Adding up Wealth is a Fuzzy Measure of Inequality”, No Fracking Way, June 29, 2016. Cf.: http://www.nofrackingway.us/2016/06/29/the-fuzzy-math-on-wealth-inequality/

Does wealth inequality matter? If so, why does it matter? And how should we measure it?

The intuitive answer to these questions is not the correct one. After all, inequality is a major global problem. If you want to measure the increasing gap between the rich and poor, the first thing you’re going to want to do is measure how rich everybody is. And the most obvious measure of how rich you are is how much money you have, aka your net worth.

The result is found in reports like this one, from Oxfam, which I was rude about when it came out in January. Other publications, too, like the Economist and Vox, shared my worries, which were in large part based on the fact that Oxfam was being misleading when it combined a lot of positive and negative numbers to end up at zero.

That line of criticism was met with no little pushback. Oxfam itself re-ran the numbers to see what they looked like without the negative-net-worth cohort; Branko Milanović explained that studying wealth inequality can sometimes be helpful, even though consumption inequality is the best way to look at differences in standard of living. And the New Yorker said that I was “missing the point,” which is that “wealth is associated with power, political and otherwise, and Oxfam worries about the concentration of power in the hands of the affluent élite.” That point was driven home this week by Oxfam’s Nick Galasso, who says that wealth and power are basically the same thing.

[…]

So while Oxfam is absolutely right that the amount of wealth controlled by the top 0.1% is worryingly large (and growing), they’re wrong that we can learn anything useful by comparing it to the aggregated net worth of the bottom 50% or even 90% of the population. In doing that, they’re comparing apples with oranges. The overwhelming majority of the world’s population lives on labor, not capital. They might have a modest amount of wealth, earned through their labor, or maybe inherited, but it’s not actually a defining feature of their lives.

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Then there’s the very, very top of the wealth distribution: the people who can afford to live on their wealth, rather than on their labor, and who can use their wealth to shape the world they live in. These people are getting richer, and arguably more powerful. But you can’t get a sensible measure of the magnitude of their wealth, or even their power, by trying to add up the modest savings that the rest of us haven’t got around to spending yet. Wealth and power scale in mysterious ways. You can’t just add them up.

St. JOHN’S UNIVERSITY, “Guest Speaker Dr. Branko Milanović Discusses Problems of Income Inequality”, Thursday, October 29, 2015. Video: 1:06:39. Cf.: http://www.stjohns.edu/about/news/2015-10-29/guest-speaker-dr-branko-milanovic-discusses-problems-income-inequality

On Thursday, October 8, 2015, the Economics and Finance Society of the Peter J. Tobin College of Business at St. John’s University hosted Dr. Branko Milanović, world-leading economist on the problems of income inequality. Dr. Milanović discussed his empirical findings on the recent trends in global income inequality and their political implications. 

SCHIERITZ, Mark, “Branko Milanović: ‘Les inégalités de revenus se creusent tant et plus, nous allons vers une plutocratie”, L’Hebdo, 23-06-2016. Cf.: http://www.hebdo.ch/hebdo/cadrages/detail/branko-milanovic-%C2%ABles-in%C3%A9galit%C3%A9s-de-revenus-se-creusent-tant-et-plus-nous

Interview. Comment s’explique la forte disparité des revenus entre les plus pauvres et les plus riches? Comment ne pas perdre les acquis essentiels, comme une bonne formation? Les réponses de l’économiste serbo-américain Branko Milanović.

Donald Trump aux Etats-Unis, Marine Le Pen en France, l’AfD en Allemagne: comment l’économiste que vous êtes explique-t-il cet essor du populisme?Lorsqu’on examine les données économiques, on remarque que l’avènement de ces personnes et de ces groupes va de pair avec le déclin de la classe moyenne dans presque tous les pays industrialisés.

C’est prouvé?Les revenus réels de beaucoup de travailleurs modestes n’ont qu’à peine augmenté en Occident ces vingt-cinq dernières années, alors que ceux des plus riches ont explosé. Au milieu des années 1970, aux Etats-Unis, le pourcentage le plus riche de la population empochait 8% du revenu national. Aujourd’hui, c’est à peu près 20%. Bien des gens sont déçus, ce qui se répercute sur leurs choix d’électeurs.

SRIVASTAVA, Deepati, “Q&A Branko Milanović: How China India & he Super Rich Are Shaping Global Inequality”, Forbes, June 23, 2016. Cf.:http://www.forbes.com/sites/deepalisrivastava/2016/06/23/qa-branko-milanovic-how-china-india-the-super-rich-are-shaping-global-inequality/#1bbf4b283dc6

Who’s to blame for inequality? In the West, particularly in the US this election year, the favorite punching bags are: China, globalization, and the “1%”. The reality, according to economist Branko Milanović, is more complicated. First China, and now India, are decreasing inequality among nations. Yet, within China and India, like in the West, inequality is increasing year after year. We thus face a paradox; inequality is looming large in a world that’s becoming more equal. I was fortunate enough to catch

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up with Milanović recently at an inequality workshop hosted by the City University of New York’s Luxembourg Income Study Center, where Milanović is a senior scholar and visiting professor. His new book Global Inequality is expansive and thought-provoking. Our conversation left me wondering about the future of inequality, but clear about the moral questions that confront us as global citizens.

STEINBAUM, Marshall, “Should the Middle Class Fear the World’s Poor?” Boston Review, May 11, 2016. Cf.: https://bostonreview.net/world/marshall-steinbaum-branko-milanovic-global-inequality

In a short column last January on the most important economic chart of the year, Paul Krugman chose what has been dubbed the “elephant curve.” Drawn from a paper by Branko Milanović and Christoph Lakner, and explored at length in Milanović’s new book Global Inequality, it portrays large income gains for the global middle class between 1988 and 2011 alongside stagnant incomes for the middle class in rich countries–and, as we all know by now, huge gains for the global top 1 percent.

What explains the pattern? Some have taken the Milanović-Lakner data as evidence for what might be called the “globalization tradeoff”: the thesis that economic development in poor countries has come at the cost of economic stagnation for the middle class in developed nations. According to this view, the growth of the global middle class is a zero-sum game; to put it provocatively, you must rob from the relatively rich middle class to give to the middle class in poor countries.

In response, a raft of recent articles has come to the defense of globalization, but not on the grounds that we might expect—namely, that the tradeoff thesis is wrong. These include works by Zack Beauchamp, Brian Doherty, Jordan Weissmann, Noah Smith, James Pethokoukis, Annie Lowrey, and Charles Kenny. Globalization may indeed be a zero-sum game, these writers say, but it is one we are morally compelled to play—by perpetuating current trade policy—in order to help the global poor. Milanović himself has strenuously protested reading his work in this way.

TEXAS LAW, “ Inequality & Human Rights Conference. April 7-9, 2016. Bibliography on Inequality and Human Rights”, utexas.edu, April 2016. Cf.: https://law.utexas.edu/inequality-conference/resources/bibliography-on-inequality-human-rights/

Human rights scholars are writing about relationships between inequality and human rights in a number of contexts. While some literature focuses on inequality between countries, including the causes and consequences of inequality between developing and developed countries, other literature discusses aspects of inequality within countries. This scholarship covers topics including the impacts of globalization and economic changes on inequality, the impact of inequality on the enjoyment of economic, social, cultural, civil, and political rights, and the value of using a human rights approach to address inequality. A number of scholars also discuss social causes and consequences of inequality.

Further, there is a substantial amount of literature on the convergence of poverty and human rights violations. Many authors focus on the ways in which poverty impedes enjoyment of human rights. Of greater interest to the Rapoport Center, however, is literature that distinguishes poverty from inequality and questions whether inequality, as distinct form poverty, matters. In other words, should governments focus on achieving equality, reducing poverty, or both?

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This bibliography also includes a number of papers on human development. Authors discuss topics including the development of the concept of human development, human development as a human right, measuring human development, and inequality in human development. Finally, this bibliography includes literature on economic theory spanning from the late 1700s through today.

TURCHIN, Peter, “Naked Self-Interest is a Recipe for Social Dissolution (a response to Branko Milanovic), , January 19, 2016. Cf.: http://peterturchin.com/blog/2016/01/19/naked-self-interest-is-a-recipe-for-social-dissolution-a-response-to-branko-milanovic/

Dear Branko,

Thank you for your comment stemming from reading Ultrasociety. It’s a very clear and coherent statement of what many (if not most) mainstream economists believe, although they don’t usually care to formulate it as well as you did. Naturally, I disagree with it—my whole book is an extended argument for the opposite view of how societies really function, and what needs to be done to make them to function better.

Let’s start by making crystal-clear what we are talking about. The main question is whether economic agents, most importantly businessmen (including both corporation officers and business owners), should be motivated solely by self-interest, or should they also be motivated by personal ethics. In your view, businessmen should act as purely selfish rational agents, whose utility functions are based solely on material benefits (to themselves). In other words, they should simply maximize how much money they get. You argue that if they act in this way, externally imposed laws and institutions that embody moral rules will ensure that their private interest will lead to greater social good. As you say, this idea goes back at least to Bernard Mandeville’s The Fable of The Bees: or, Private Vices, Public Benefits.

Now, what do you mean social good? In economics and evolution we have a well-defined concept of public goods. Production of public goods is individually costly, while benefits are shared among all. I think you see where I am going. As we all know, selfish agents will never cooperate to produce costly public goods. I think this mathematical result should have the status of “the fundamental theorem of social sciences.”

[…]

Now this is just an illustration. My main argument is logical, not empirical. You cannot have a well-functioning society in which everybody, or even a majority, are pursuing solely self-interest. This applies to the whole society, and to its parts, including the economy. Good institutions are not going to work in the absence of internalized prosocial values held by a sufficient number of people. Telling anybody to pursue their naked self-interest is not a recipe for greater social good. It’s a recipe for social dissolution.

UNDP, Humanity Divided: Confronting inequality in developing Countries, New York: UNDP, November 2013, pp. 279. Cf.: http://www.undp.org/content/dam/undp/library/Poverty%20Reduction/Inclusive%20development/Humanity%20Divided/HumanityDivided_Full-Report.pdf

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Great and persistent inequality in the midst of plenty is a paradox of our times. Over the last few decades, innovation has exploded from our increasingly digital age, poverty-rates have declined in every region of the world, and emerging market countries have experienced unprecedented growth. Global income inequality stands at very high levels, whereby the richest eight percent of the world’s population earn half of the world’s total income, while the remaining 92 percent of people are left with the other half. 1 Such gaps have left many on the precipice of steep decline. With insecure livelihoods, volatile markets, and unreliable services, many people feel increasingly threatened by the prospect of falling under poverty lines and into poverty traps; as many in fact have.

Within many countries, wealth and income inequalities have reached new heights, handicapping efforts to realize development outcomes and expand the opportunities and abilities of people. Soaring inequalities distort budgets and political processes, leaving them ever more attuned to entrenched elites. This makes it more difficult for citizens to have a say in the decisions which impact on them and to be able to live lives they value. Reminders of the sharp differences in wealth, education, and other material resources influence the way in which people view themselves and others, and can make the equal participation of citizens in political and public life almost impossible.

Not surprisingly, people the world over are demanding a change in direction. Through social movements and in protests in both the Global North and South, people are calling for better services, greater opportunity, dignity, and respect. They want responsive government and an end to the discrimination which aggravates and compounds inequalities, often placing women, ethnic minorities, indigenous peoples, people with disabilities, gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people, those living rural or remote communities, and others who are marginalized, at a further disadvantage.

On Chapter 2: Why does national inequality matter?

Early development thinkers such as Kuznets, Lewis and others were interested in the question of whether income inequality mattered for economic growth and development. More recent thinkers, such as Sen and those expanding human development perspectives towards ‘human well-being’, have increasingly broadened the discussion to whether and how inequality matters for broader conceptualizations of development inherent in the lens of human development and ‘human well-being’. The earlier group of thinkers tended to argue that inequality did not really matter. More recent thinkers and literature, though, show that inequality does matter for growth, broader human development and well-being from instrumental and intrinsic viewpoints.

This chapter explores these debates. The chapter is structured as follows: section 2 discusses the earlier development thinkers; section 3 focuses on more recent development thinkers; and section 4 concludes.

UNESCO and International Social Science Council, World Social Science Report: Knowledge Divides, Paris: UNESCO Publishing, 2010, pp. 444 (Social Sciences Studies Series). Cf.: [Disponible aussi en Français] http://publishing.unesco.org/details.aspx?&Code_Livre=4745

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https://books.google.fr/books?id=eWhVFxKztIMC&printsec=frontcover&hl=fr&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false http://publishing.unesco.org/details.aspx?Code_Livre=4896 [Français] Over the past twenty years social sciences have become global. They are taught almost everywhere. Their research results are now widely disseminated. Social science expertise is in high demand by policy-makers, media and the public, and social science concepts and theories influence public opinion and debate more than ever before. However the 'knowledge divides' that characterize much of current social science's production, access and use threaten the role of social science expertise and undermine the capacity of policy-makers and civil society to address current challenges.

Worldwide poverty, inequality and climate change are among the current major challenges to which social sciences should contribute a response. More and better social science is vital. To cope, capacity must be built, particularly in the regions where social problems are most acute and social science systems most anemic.

This Report provides a comprehensive review of the state of the social sciences in the world.

VAHUNI, Vara, “Critics of Oxfam’s Poverty Statistics are Missing the Point”, New Yorker, January 28, 2015. Cf.: http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/critics-oxfams-poverty-statistics-missing-point The main reason the super-rich have seen their wealth expand so much since 2010 is that stocks have risen a great deal. Affluent people are much more likely to hold stocks than the poorer half of the population, so they’ve benefitted more. But, with European economies in crisis, the Russian economy floundering, and Chinese growth slowing, stocks may not keep rising forever—or even for the next five years. “If asset prices go on increasing as they have since the financial crisis, then it’s quite likely that [Oxfam’s] projection will be correct,” Shorrocks told me. “But it is conditional on that, and I don’t think anyone’s really expecting that to happen.”

VECERNIK, Jiri, “Branko Milanović: Worlds Apart: Measuring International and Global Inequality”, Sociologický časopis / Czech Sociological Review, Vol. 42, n.º 3, 2006, pp. 608-610. Cf.: http://www.ssoar.info/ssoar/bitstream/handle/document/5659/ssoar-2006-3-vecernik-branko_milanovic_worlds_apart_measuring.pdf?sequence=1 Branko Milanović is a lead economist at the World Bank who has been dealing with world inequality for three decades and is deeply involved in the topic. His most recent book is both a synthesis of his many years of research in the field and an important step forward in explaining the issue. In just 150 pages, he offers a concise clarification of the problem and in the next 50 pages he provides the reader with the results produced by various inequality measurements. Although tightly focused, the methodology is by far the book’s main message. Indeed, it is a substantial one and well underpinned by geopolitical and historical considerations about what might be behind the trend or trends in inequality as variously represented using different measurements.

The book excels for its innovative substance and sound style. It is thus highly readable and accessible even for people unfamiliar with inequality issues. ‘The mother of all inequality disputes is the concept of inequality’, begins the author. He then distinguishes three various measures, each of which has a specific construction and use. Concept 1, the most frequently used measure of inequality, takes countries as units of observation and characterises them by GDP. Concept 2 adds population

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weight to the previous information, so that, for example, Luxembourg and China are not taken as units of observation on the same level. Concept 3 is quite different, as it observes all individuals or households and computes using populations of people instead of sets of countries or regions.

WOLF, Martin, “Global Inequality: A New Approach for the Age of Globalization, by Branko Milanović”, Financial Times, April 14, 2016. Cf.: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/13603aa2-0185-11e6-ac98-3c15a1aa2e62.html

Branko Milanović has written an outstanding book. Global Inequality: A New Approach for the Age of Globalization is informative, wide-ranging, scholarly, imaginative and commendably brief. As you would expect from one of the world’s leading experts on this topic, Milanović has added significantly to important recent works by Thomas Piketty, Anthony Atkinson and François Bourguignon.

WORSTALL, Tim, “There’s Probably More One Percenters Working For Oxfam Than There are Billionaires”, Forbes, January 22, 2015. Cf.: http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2015/01/22/theres-probably-more-one-percenters-working-for-oxfam-than-there-are-billionaires/#930f2154da5b

That report from Oxfam about how the 1% own near 50% of everything in the world is still making waves. Despite it not actually being a very interesting or surprising number. For wealth distributions simply work this way. For it’s possible to have negative wealth: more debt than the value of whatever it is that you own. Like just about every student who graduates from college with a bit of tuition debt for example. And this means that the bottom part of any wealth distribution simply don’t have very much, if anything. This is true of the global wealth distribution and it’s true of the wealth distribution within a country or economy as well.

YATES, Michael D., “Poverty and Inequality in the Global Economy”, Monthly Review, Vol. 55, n.º 9, February 2004. Cf.: http://monthlyreview.org/2004/02/01/poverty-and-inequality-in-the-global-economy/

Capitalism is hundreds of years old and today dominates nearly every part of the globe. Its champions claim that it is the greatest engine of production growth the world has ever seen. They also argue that it is unique in its ability to raise the standard of living of every person on earth. Because of capitalism, we are all “slouching toward utopia,”—the phrase coined by University of California at Berkeley economist J. Bradford DeLong—slowly but surely heading toward a world in which everyone will have achieved a U.S.-style middle-class life.1

Given the long tenure of capitalism and the unceasing contentions of its adherents, it seems fair to ask if it is true that we are “slouching toward utopia.” Let us look at three things: the extent of poverty and inequality in the richest capitalist economy—that of the United States; the extent of poverty and inequality in the poor countries of the world; and the gap between those countries at the top of the capitalist heap and those at the bottom.

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Dear Friends and Colleagues,

On January 2016 I had the opportunity to read the OXFAM report An Economy for the 1%. How privilege and power in the economy drive extreme inequality and how this can be stopped.

The report “shows that the wealth of the poorest half of the world’s population has fallen by a trillion dollars since 2010, a drop of 38 percent. This has occurred despite the global population increasing by around 400 million people during that period. Meanwhile, the wealth of the richest 62 has increased by more than half a trillion dollars to $1.76tr. The report also shows how women are disproportionately affected by inequality – of the current ‘62’, 53 are men and just nine are women”.

“Although world leaders have increasingly talked about the need to tackle inequality, and in September agreed a global goal to reduce it, the gap between the richest and the rest has widened dramatically in the past 12 months. Oxfam’s prediction, made ahead of last year’s Davos, that the 1% would soon own more than the rest of us, actually came true in 2015 - a year earlier than expected”.

Last week I received and read Branko Milanović’s last book Global Inequality. A New Approach for the Age of Globalization (April 2016).

Milanović is one of the world’s leading economists of inequality (Thomas Piketty) and in this book “continues his lifelong investigation into the past, present and future of inequality, within and between nations, and in the world as a whole” (Angus Deaton).

As underlined by Joseph Stiglitz, “continuing with his extraordinarily important work on the empirics of global inequality, Branko Milanović in this book expands on that work to lay the basis for a more theoretical understanding of the evolution of inequality. The current situation and its tendency have profound political implications.

Are we sitting down on a time bomb?

Milanović says in a nuanced way that “It is hard to imagine that a system with such high inequality could be politically stable. […] If the losers remain disorganized and subject to false consciousness, not much will change. If they do organize themselves and find political champions who could tap into their resentment and get their votes, then it might be possible for the rich countries to put into place policies that would set them on the downward path of the second Kuznets wave. How could this be achieved? (p. 217)

Given the dramatically importance of this subject, I decided to share with you this presentation of Branko Milanović’s work and more specifically of his last book.

Enjoy it very much!

Best wishes to you and your loved ones.

Alfonso

P.S.: Please, confirm the receipt of this message and the attached file file. Grazie e tanti auguri

----------Alfonso E. Lizarzaburu UNESCO International Consultant on Education Honorary Professor of the Ricardo Palma University (Peru) Adviser to the Presidency of the UNESCO Club Valencia (Spain) Member of the Executive Board and of the Governing Council of the World Committee for Lifelong Learning (France) 7, rue Carrière Mainguet 75011 Paris France Telephone: (1) 43.79.31.03 E-mail: alfonso.lizarzaburu@gmail.com

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Queridos amigos y colegas

En enero de 2016 tuve la oportunidad de leer el informe de OXFAM Una economía al servicio del 1%. Acabar con los privilegios y la concentración de poder para frenar la desigualdad extrema.

El informe “pone de relieve que, desde 2010, la riqueza de la mitad más pobre de la población se ha reducido en un billón de dólares, lo que supone una caída del 38%. Esto ha ocurrido a pesar de que la población mundial ha crecido en cerca de 400 millones de personas durante el mismo período. Mientras, la riqueza de las 62 personas más ricas del planeta ha aumentado en más de 500.000 millones de dólares, hasta alcanzar la cifra de 1,76 billones de dólares. El informe también muestra cómo la desigualdad afecta de manera desproporcionada a las mujeres; de las 62 personas más ricas del mundo, 53 son hombres y tan solo 9 son mujeres”.

“A pesar de que los líderes mundiales hablan cada vez más de la necesidad de abordar la desigualdad y en septiembre fijaron un objetivo mundial para reducirla, la realidad es que la brecha entre los más ricos y el resto de la población ha aumentado de manera drástica a lo largo de los últimos doce meses. La predicción que Oxfam realizó antes de la reunión de Davos del año pasado, de que en poco tiempo el 1% poseería más riqueza que el resto de la población mundial, se ha cumplido en 2015, un año antes de lo esperado”.

La última semana recibí y leí el último libro de Branko Milanović Global Inequality. A New Approach for the Age of Globalization (que apareció en abril de 2016).

Milanović “es uno de los economistas más destacados del mundo sobre la desigualdad que lidera a nivel mundial” (Thomas Piketty) y en este libro “prosigue su investigación de toda una vida sobre el pasado, el presente y el futuro de la desigualdad, dentro y entre las naciones, y en el mundo como un todo” (Angus Deaton).

Como recalca Joseph Stiglitz, “continuando con su extraordinariamente importante trabajo sobre la desigualdad global, en este libro Branko Milanović amplia ese trabajo para sentar las bases de una comprensión más teórica de la evolución de la desigualdad. La situación actual y su tendencia tienen profundas implicaciones políticas”.

¿Estamos sentados sobre una bomba de tiempo?

Milanović dice matizadamente: “Es difícil imaginar que un sistema con tan alta desigualdad pueda ser políticamente estable. […] Si los perdedores permanecen desorganizados y sujetos a una falsa conciencia, no cambiará mucho. Si se organizan y encuentran líderes políticos que podrían aprovechar su resentimiento y obtener sus votos, podría ser posible que los países ricos formulen políticas que los situarían en una tendencia decreciente de la segunda curva de Kuznets. ¿Cómo se puede lograr esto?” (p. 217)

Dada la crucial importancia de esta tema, decidí compartir con ustedes esta presentación de la obra de Branko Milanović y, más específicamente, de su último libro.

¡Disfrútenlo!

Mis mejores deseos para ustedes y sus seres queridos.

Alfonso ----------Alfonso E. LizarzaburuConsultor Internacional en Educación de la UNESCO Profesor Honorario de la Universidad Ricardo Palma (Perú) Asesor de la Presidencia del Club UNESCO Valencia (España) Miembro del Comité Ejecutivo y el Consejo de Administración del Comité Mundial para el Aprendizaje a lo Largo de Toda la Vida (Francia) 7, rue Carrière Mainguet 75011 Paris FRANCE Teléfono: (33) (1) 43.79.31.03 Correo electrónico: alfonso.lizarzaburu@gmail.com

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