Sunday, November 8, 2020

The history of global inequality studies — Branko Milanovic

Christiansen asked a question that I thought about for a while but never wrote about: how do certain ideas—in this case the idea of global inequality—arise? How do they get formulated? What explains that they become popular after not only being ignored but not even existing (as ideas) for a long time? Since I was involved in this process, I thought I would try to explain how—at least to me—this seems to have happened.

It is useful of think of the interaction between four forces: ideology, politics, data, and sociology of knowledge....
Global Inequality
The history of global inequality studies
Branko Milanovic | Visiting Presidential Professor at City University of New York Graduate Center and senior scholar at the Stone Center on Socio-economic Inequality, senior scholar at the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS), and formerly lead economist in the World Bank's research department and senior associate at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

6 comments:

Peter Pan said...

Maybe Branko should descend from his ivory tower and ask the unwashed masses how it arose.

Then he can return to the cloister to ponder inequity.

Matt Franko said...

“ If asked what is important, a trite answer would be to say to follow one’s passion or interests. But I think that while in general this is a good advice it is of limited practical value. I would add that when choosing what to study one should keep one’s expectations and ambitions of external success (within one’s lifetime) low. One thus can never be disappointed.”

Sheesh... maybe it’s because “studying something” itself is of limited practical value... iow it’s never applied to something practical...

Matt Franko said...

Practical:

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/09/covid-vaccine-pfizer-drug-is-more-than-90percent-effective-in-preventing-infection.html

Peter Pan said...

It's dangerous for academics to study topics with practical applications. They might get punished...

Matt Franko said...

Well half the academe does that.... I think you are talking about the half that does not...

Peter Pan said...

Are you including scientists?

Professor of X is more than 50% of academia.