Global inequality : a new approach for the age of globalization
(Book)

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Published
Cambridge, Massachusetts : The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, [2016].
ISBN
9780674737136, 067473713X
Status

Description

"One of the world's leading economists of inequality, Branko Milanovic 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 seem 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, Milanovic's compelling explanation is the ideal place to start."--Provided by publisher.

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Indian Prairie Public Library District - 1st Floor330.9 MILANOVICOn Shelf

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Table of Contents

The rise of the global middle class and global plutocrats
Inequality within countries : introducing the Kuznets waves to explain long-term trends in inequality
Inequality among countries : from Karl Marx to Frantz Fanon, and then back to Marx?
Global inequality in this century and the next
What next? Ten short reflections on the future of income inequality and globalization.

More Details

Published
Cambridge, Massachusetts : The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, [2016].
Format
Book
Physical Desc
ix, 299 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm
Language
English
ISBN
9780674737136, 067473713X
UPC
40026175154

Notes

Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Description
"One of the world's leading economists of inequality, Branko Milanovic 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 seem 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, Milanovic's compelling explanation is the ideal place to start."--Provided by publisher.

Published Reviews

Choice Review

Milanovic (Graduate Center, CUNY), a leading scholar with an indefatigable passion for the study of inequality, plumbs the research on the topic and makes it accessible to anyone interested in such deep questions as these: Why is inequality soaring? Will the poor ever catch up with the rich? Will inequality self-destruct? Will the 1 percent gobble everything up? Is capitalism rigged to benefit the rich? Answers are pivotal in the study of the evolution of the human condition. The author's main organizing construct is the Kuznets curve of economics, which connects income inequality and the per capita income of countries. If the Kuznets curve is the product of a causal connection between the two, then inequality should decline as a country becomes richer: recent data suggests otherwise. Could there be a dynamic evolution, a wave of Kuznets curves, at play? How else can one reconcile the rise and fall of within-country inequality and the convergence of per capita incomes across broad country categories? This engaging read, much in the style of Anthony Atkinson's Inequality (CH, Sep'15, 53-0340), patiently takes readers forward through a century of data, organizing it all with the lenses of modern economics. The author ends on a hopeful note, even if the future he describes is not. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries. --Joydeep Bhattacharya, Iowa State University

Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
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Kirkus Book Review

The rich get richer, and the world gets poorer. Inequality is a constant of history. But, writes economist Milanovic (Luxembourg Income Study Center; The Haves and the Have-Nots: A Brief and Idiosyncratic History of Global Inequality, 2010, etc.), only recently have we been able to work with meaningful numbers about it. His terminus is 1988, "a convenient starting place because it coincides almost exactly with the fall of the Berlin Wall and reintegration of the then-communist economies into the world economic system." Armed with strong data, the author charts how inequality of income and wealth, among other axes, though a global phenomenon, also has local results: in the face of globalization, workers in China may want to unionize, for instance, while workers in the United States might demand protective tariffs. Building on but not entirely endorsing the work of Thomas Piketty, Milanovic looks closely at some specific consequences of this push and pull across the globe: unskilled workers may be drawn to the U.S. because of the tightening of possibilities of intergenerational mobility, while more skilled ones might instead opt for the Northern European nations, where that opportunity is greater. If that premise is guaranteed to irritate America-firsters, so are some of Milanovic's other findings, presented with the arid calmness of his profession. As inequality rises, the middle class disappears; as it does, political power concentrates in the hands of the rich, who may opt to send their children to private schools and refuse to fund public ones, with the "countervailing power of the middle classno longer sufficiently strong to oblige them to finance public health and education and participate in it." Milanovic is cautious about forecasting either economic or political consequences, noting in passing how wrong analysts were in the 1970s and '80s about the world of today and observing, "predicting important discrete events may be a form of charlatanism." Packed with charts and graphs and not for the numerically faint of heart. For those versed in economics, however, Milanovic provides an illuminating analysis. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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Citations

APA Citation, 7th Edition (style guide)

Milanović, B. (2016). Global inequality: a new approach for the age of globalization . The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation, 17th Edition (style guide)

Milanović, Branko. 2016. Global Inequality: A New Approach for the Age of Globalization. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

Chicago / Turabian - Humanities (Notes and Bibliography) Citation, 17th Edition (style guide)

Milanović, Branko. Global Inequality: A New Approach for the Age of Globalization Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2016.

Harvard Citation (style guide)

Milanović, B. (2016). Global inequality: a new approach for the age of globalization. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

MLA Citation, 9th Edition (style guide)

Milanović, Branko. Global Inequality: A New Approach for the Age of Globalization The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2016.

Note! Citations contain only title, author, edition, publisher, and year published. Citations should be used as a guideline and should be double checked for accuracy. Citation formats are based on standards as of August 2021.

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