The Evolution of World Income Inequality

Book excerpt: In the last two centuries, the world has seen an unprecedented increase in the capacity to create material wealth and undergo technical change. At the same time, this is also a period of large disparities in income per head, living standards across and within countries and regions of the world. Large inequalities can eventually undermine global integration and social stability thus hampering long run growth prospects and the legitimacy of globalization. Policies to reduce global inequalities have to focus on raising growth rates of poorer countries, improving income distribution at the national level and facilitate some global redistribution to low-income nations.