Is Economic Inequality Falling in the World? Some Data and Graphs

Is Economic Inequality Falling in the World? In this webinar Danny Dorling presents some of the most recent data made available through the World Top Incomes database and the statistical releases of the United Nations Development Programmes Human Development Reports. These suggest that there may be some tentative evidence that a tipping point could have been reached and income inequality is now (perhaps) beginning to fall in many affluent countries, as well as in much of the rest of the world.

The world’s super-rich continue to amass extraordinary wealth, and the very poorest in the world continue to gain very little, but in between those extremes, and within many countries, peak income-inequality may have recently passed. The last peak was roughly a century ago. Wealth inequality trends tends to lag income inequality trends by one or two decades. Furthermore, even if income inequalities have started to fall, they remain extremely high. This is as compared to recent decades and we can also expect wealth inequalities to continue to rise for some time to come regardless.

The webinar was given to Young Scholars at the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET), in particular members of the YSI Inequality Working Group, with the aim of encouraging others to look at this data and to try to help determine whether we might be at a tipping point, or whether the very wealthy, and especially those enjoying the very highest incomes, have found new ways to disguise their take and so appear to be starting to taking a little less, but are not actually taking less. Is what we can see fluctuation, a fall, or a facility?

The Young Scholars’ Initiative (YSI) Inequality Working Group is open to all Young Scholars with a particular interest in inequality. Anyone interested in these topics is encouraged to join the Inequality Working Group at the Institute for New Economic Thinking. The working group offers inequality scholars the opportunity to connect with peers and leading scholars and will receive updates on events and funding opportunities through their unique intranet portal. To find out more and sign up for free please visit http://www.theiwg.org or http://ineteconomics.org/community/young-scholars/join