When people are confronted with high income inequality, they develop an unrealistically optimistic view of their chances for social mobility. This misjudgment leads them to show less support for political redistribution—a mechanism that stabilizes social inequality. This conclusion was reached by WZ...
Commissioned by the G20 South Africa Presidency | Inequality is one of the most urgent concerns in the world today, generating many other problems in economies, societies, polities and the environment.
Source: G20 Reports.
Jacobin | The welfare state is essential for keeping the nonworking population out of poverty. But we shouldn’t discount the role of predistributive measures like strong unions and minimum wage laws in reducing inequality.
Source: Jacobin.
We feel instinctively that societies with huge income gaps are somehow going wrong. Richard Wilkinson charts the hard data on economic inequality, and shows what gets worse when rich and poor are too far apart: real effects on health, lifespan, even such basic values as trust.
What are the grand dynamics that drive the accumulation and distribution of capital? Questions about the long-term evolution of inequality, the concentration of wealth, and the prospects for economic growth lie at the heart of political economy. But satisfactory answers have been hard to find for la...
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...