International Social Science Journal (Chinese Edition)

No.4, 2017

 

Whither income inequalities? (Abstract)

 

Jomo Kwame Sundaram and Vladimir Popov

 

Some major trends in world income inequalities and relevant economic trends are reviewed here. In the several decades after WWII, there had been indications of a reversal of the growing income divergence between North and South after over half a millennium, especially in the last two centuries. However, since late 1980s and early 1990s, income inequalities within most countries have been growing again, increasing social tensions, which may jeopardize growth in some countries and reshape global economic competition. In the 1960s, when the profit rate and capital’s share of national income in Western countries were highest, income inequality within countries was at a historical low. Since the 1980s, the increasing share of profits in national income and rising inequality within countries have gone hand in hand.