Milanovic on Global Inequality

An insightful, though-provoking lecture by Branko Milanovic, a leading expert and historian of global inequality, on his major new work of empirical economics that "presents a bold account of the dynamics that drive inequality on a global scale." It's followed by responses from other experts and Q&A. Among his key contributions is the "elephant curve" which illustrates how the gains of globalization were distributed in recent decades (it benefited much of the world population but not so much the middle/working-classes in the US, UK, and a few other high income countries), and his theory of Kuznets waves, a replacement for the Kuznets curve (a much contested idea in development economics; Thomas Piketty didn't show much fondness for the Kuznets curve in Capital).

Read some book reviews: one, two, three, four, a book excerpt, and his articles on income inequality and citizenship and inequality in India.

Comments

[Namit]

Milanovic's article on the link between inequality and citizenship prompted these thoughts in me:

It's no surprise that the country one is born in today significantly shapes one’s material outcomes in life. Accidental birth in the first-world confers real but unearned advantages (similar to being born white in America or Brahmin in India). It's like getting a lifelong "citizenship rent", and Milanovic's article quantifies it.

In short, a random individual's income is predicted more by his country's global income rank than by inequality within his own country. From another vantage point, our national borders and immigration restrictions seem like a form of global apartheid, which keeps poorer groups out of richer enclaves, consigning them to inferior social goods and services.

Indeed, why must our quest for equality of opportunity only have national horizons? First-world citizen-philosophers concerned about equality of opportunity for all humans should not only recognize this unearned advantage but also desire a world where one’s country of birth would matter less and less (just as race, caste, and gender shouldn’t limit one’s material outcomes in life).

Most of us can agree that first-world lifestyles are sustainable only in small numbers. It’s unlikely that India, Africa, and Indonesia can all achieve today's first-world living standards. Their march to get there may truly well wreck the planet. If you worry about our limited natural resources and believe that there are limits to "endless" economic growth, the only morally defensible path to global equality of opportunity, it seems to me, is to commit to finding practical ways of driving the mean income of your country towards the global mean, say, that of the Malaysian middle-class.

Are we ready for this my fellow Americans? And if not, is equality of opportunity not important to you? :-)