Global inequality
by Branko Milanović · first published 2016
75% recommend25% neutral
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. Drawing on vast data sets and cutting-edge research, Milanović explains the benign and malign forces that make inequality rise and fall within and among nations. He reveals who has been helped the most by globalization, who has been held back, and what policies might tilt the balance toward economic justice.
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…lot of heavy lifting there. That Econ101 justification is harder and harder to keep up as you learn more about both economics and the real world. For detailed counter arguments, see Branko Milanović Global inequality: A New Approach for the Age of Globalization, James Kwak Economism: Bad Economics and the Rise of Inequality, Walt Bogdanich & Michael Forsythe When McKinsey Comes to Town: The Hidden Influence of the…
on “Who died and left the US $7B?” ↗I found Branko Milanovic's "The Haves and the Have-Nots: A Brief and Idiosyncratic History of Global Inequality" to be an eye-opener. Roughly paraphrased, if you're in the top half of the US, your equivalent in India would be the top 1%. I don't remember if it was that book or something similar I read around…
on “Stanford historian uncovers a grim correlation between violence and inequality” ↗…in the West in the decades following WW II (though tainted by racism). Pikkety's seminal "Capital in the Twenty-First Century" is the famous, but somewhat dry exposition on that. Branko Milanovic's "Global Inequality: A New Approach for the Age of Globalization" is a relatively slender volume that gives a great overview (on this question in chapter 2). TL;DR: In "the West", 1950-1980
on “Below Deck: Filipinos make up nearly a third of all cruise ship workers” ↗I think more pertinent are Economism by James Kwak (on the naive use of Econ 101), Global Inequality by Branko Milanovic (a better, or at least much more legible, analysis of inequality within and among countries than Piketty's tome), and maybe Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind…
on “A Guide to Statistics on Historical Trends in Income Inequality” ↗A fantastic overview of poverty across the history of humanity comes in a short book: The Haves and the Have-Nots: A Brief and Idiosyncratic History of Global Inequality Paperback by economist Branko Milanovic, in which he compares wealth and poverty across millennia. And for a serious philosophical treatment about poverty, informed by numerous statistics comes in a…
on “A letter to Steven Pinker about global poverty” ↗I strongly recommend Branko Milanovic's book The Haves and the Have-Nots: A Brief and Idiosyncratic History of Global Inequality as an overview of poverty across millennia.
on “A letter to Steven Pinker about global poverty” ↗The fantastic book[1] The Haves and the Have-Nots: A Brief and Idiosyncratic History of Global Inequality by Branko Milanovic points out that the 3 most-important correlated determinants of financial success in life are, in order: 1. Geography (which country you're born in) 2. Parents' finances 3. Your…
on “How to win Monopoly in the shortest possible time” ↗A marvelous book comparing income and wealth across centuries is The Haves and the Have-Nots - A Brief and Idiosyncratic History of Global Inequality by Branko Milanovic. One way to compare wealth is to see how many people's labor an individual could purchase. It differs across time and countries (labor is cheap in India currently for example). This…
on “How much did a tunic cost in the Roman Empire? (2021)” ↗…the same level of purchasing power as the the lowest 5% of US residents on average according to World Bank economist Branko Milanovic in The Haves and the Have-Nots, a Brief and Idiosyncratic History of Global Inequality. [http://www.amazon.com/Haves-Have-Nots-Idiosyncratic-History-...] That's not to say that there are not a large number of Indian individuals with substantial purchasing power (5% of Indians is 50 million…
on “Indians cry out for Apple's attention” ↗Nice. The right side of graph 4, with the massive drop of r-g during WW1 and WW2, bolsters the argument made I believe by Branko Milanovic eg in Global Inequality, namely that war, by destroying fortunes, works to reduce inequality.
on “The Rate of Return on Everything, 1870–2015 [pdf]” ↗…g) and only interrupted by wars, depression, hyper inflation, and similar catastrophes that destroy a lot of wealth. That's rather more exciting than stagnation. Branko Milanović’s more recent (2016) Global Inequality: A New Approach for the Age of Globalization (which originated the famous elephant graph [2]) notes that 1) inequality has risen recently within nations, but decreased among nations; 2) the Kuznet inverted-U…
on “How People Get Rich Now” ↗