“Inequality around the World: Evidence and Implications”
Abstract: The lecture will present new evidence on global inequality and growth since 1980 using the World and Wealth Income Database. We combine data across countries in a homogeneous way to analyze world inequality. Global inequality has increased since 1980 in spite of fast growth in large emerging countries. We plot the curve of cumulated growth from 1980 to 2016 for each percentile of the global distribution of income per adult. This curve has an elephant shape as growth rates have been particularly high around the median (due to growth in China and India), growth rates have been low for the middle classes of advanced economies, and growth rates have been explosive for the global top income earners. We estimate the future evolution of global inequality between now and 2050 combining projected macro growth rates and within country inequality evolution based on past trends.
*Co-sponsored with the Department of Economics and Anderson School of Management and Public Policy and Applied Social Science Seminar (PPASS)
