Inequality | From Poverty to Power

Grenfell Tower is a Hurricane Katrina moment, revealing the shameful state of Britain

Duncan Green - June 20, 2017

My colleague Max Lawson sends out a weekly round-up of things he’s read, and adds some views. Here he is on the meaning and horror of the Grenfell Tower fire. At times an event can act like a flash of lightning, illuminating simmering issues that can otherwise feel abstract. The recent horrific fire in the Grenfell Tower Block in West London has done this in the UK, not …

Guardian launches important new Website on Inequality

Duncan Green - April 28, 2017

The Guardian launched a promising new website on inequality this week, edited by Mike Herd. ‘Over the coming year, the Guardian’s Inequality Project – supported by the Ford Foundation – will try to shed fresh light on these and many more issues of inequality and social unfairness, using in-depth reporting, new academic research and, most importantly, insights from you, our audience, wherever you are in the world …

The Power of Data: how new stats are changing our understanding of inequality

Duncan Green - March 15, 2017

Every Saturday my colleague Max Lawson, who’s Oxfam’s global inequality policy lead, sends round an email entitled ‘Some short reading for the weekend if you fancy it’. This week was particularly good, so I just lifted it: This year has already been good for the improvement in data availability on inequality, with the launch of the Wealth and Incomes Database (WID) in Paris in January. …

The Economist profiles Gender Budgeting ahead of International Women’s Day

Duncan Green - March 3, 2017

There appears to be some kind of feminist cell operating at the Economist. Without ever mentioning International Women’s Day (next Wednesday), they slipped in a wonderful tribute to Diana Elson and her work on gender budgeting, with the header ‘TAX is a feminist issue’. Here it is, (I’ve added a few links). Hope I haven’t blown their cover. Why national budgets need to take gender …

Inequality

Want to put together a team to research inequality? LSE may be able to fund you

Duncan Green - February 7, 2017

A 20 year project to build an international network of scholars and activists working on inequality is just kicking off. Interested? Read on. The Project is the Atlantic Fellows programme (AFP), run by the LSE’s new-ish International Inequalities Institute and funded by Atlantic Philanthropies, a US foundation (only foundations seem to be able to think on this longer time scale – it’s a really important …

Of Jousting Knights and Jewelled Swords: a feminist reflection on Davos

Duncan Green - February 3, 2017

Nancy Folbre is a feminist economist and professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst What kind of an economic system delivers as much wealth to 8 men at the top as to the bottom half of the global population? It’s easier to describe shocking levels inequality than to explain them. Activist challenges to the power of the top 1%–along with demands for the …

A Song for Davos: your chance to vote on best song on inequality

Duncan Green - January 18, 2017

Twitter definitely beats work. On Monday, Oxfam’s Max Lawson kicked off a discussion on the best song about economic inequality, which got enough candidates for an impromptu ‘Song for Davos’ competition – check these out and vote. Creedence Clearwater Revival, Fortunate Son [Max Lawson] Bob Marley, Them Belly Full [me, with post on Marley v IMF] Motorhead, Eat the Rich [Phil Evans] Juliani (Kenyan rapper, …

Davos & Inequality Continued: What does an alternative economic vision for the future look like?

Duncan Green - January 17, 2017

Deborah Hardoon, who really ought to be resting on her laurels after her report for Davos went viral yesterday, springs to the defence of (the right kind of) economics. Nerd Alert. As a student of economics, I always found the technical aspects of the subject deeply satisfying. Getting to the ‘right’ answer using algebra and statistics, solving ‘proofs’ and finding that stable equilibrium. Bliss. But …

8 men now own the same as the poorest half of the world: the Davos killer fact just got more deadly

Duncan Green - January 16, 2017

It’s Davos this week, which means it’s time for Oxfam’s latest global ‘killer fact’ on extreme inequality. Since our first calculation in 2014, these have helped get inequality onto the agenda of the global leaders assembled in Switzerland. This year, the grabber of any headlines not devoted to the US presidential inauguration on Friday is that it’s worse than we thought. Last year it was …

RIP Tony Atkinson: Here he is on our personal responsibility for reducing inequality

Duncan Green - January 2, 2017

Tony Atkinson, one of the world’s great thought leaders on poverty and inequality, died on New Year’s Day. Combining intellectual rigour and a profound commitment to social justice, his life’s work epitomised the economics profession at its best. Here he is in the final chapter of his 2015 book ‘Inequality: What can be done?’ ‘I do not accept that rising inequality is inevitable: it is …