Morning Must-Read: Tony Atkinson and Salvatore Morelli: The chartbook of economic inequality

Tony Atkinson and Salvatore Morelli: The chartbook of economic inequality: “Inequality – long ignored – is now centre stage….

This column introduces the Chartbook of Economic Inequality, a summary of long-run changes in economic inequality for 25 countries over more than 100 years…. Public discourse has started to openly debate the economic implications as well as the legitimacy of increasingly powerful elites seizing a growing share of the national pie year after year. These concerns, led the Managing Director of the IMF, Christine Lagarde to indicate the need for “addressing inequality and building inclusive growth” as one of three ‘milestones’ of the future global economy, in her October 2012 Annual Meetings Speech in Tokyo…. Researchers and scholars have also began to single out inequality as one of the structural causes of the recent financial crisis. This has led us to compile the Chartbook of Economic Inequality…