Inequality and Globalization: A Review Essay

Martin Ravallion

Journal of Economic Literature, 2018, vol. 56, issue 2, 620-42

Abstract: As normally measured, "global inequality" is the relative inequality of incomes found among all people in the world no matter where they live. Francois Bourguignon and Branko Milanovic have written insightful and timely books on global inequality, emphasizing the role of globalization. The books are complementary: Milanovic provides an ambitious broad-brush picture, with some intriguing hypotheses on the processes at work; Bourguignon provides a deep and suitably qualified economic analysis. This paper questions the thesis of both books—that globalization has been a major driving force of inequality between or within countries. The paper also questions the robustness of the evidence for declining global inequality, and notes some conceptual limitations of standard measures in capturing the concerns of many observers in the ongoing debates about globalization and the policy responses.

JEL-codes: D31 D63 E25 F61 F63 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
Note: DOI: 10.1257/jel.20171419
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (66)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jel.20171419 (application/pdf)
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/attachments?retrie ... gPB7tjJsbVjCjtmSo0pR (application/zip)
Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Inequality and globalization: A review essay (2017)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aea:jeclit:v:56:y:2018:i:2:p:620-42

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/subscriptions

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Literature is currently edited by Steven Durlauf

More articles in Journal of Economic Literature from American Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael P. Albert ().