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Now displaying: Category: Inequality
Sep 7, 2023

Credit cards that offer rewards like travel discounts seem a good idea, but rewards cards can be costly for anyone who keeps a running balance. So should there be rules around who gets one? IMF economist Andrea Presbitero is coauthor of a study that looks at the distributional impact of rewards cards. In this podcast, Presbitero says while the high interest rates and penalties associated with these cards can widen wealth inequality, limiting access is not the answer. Transcript: https://bit.ly/3r5fzwY

Feb 26, 2021

Economists have long studied economic migration between rich and poor countries, but India's large population and significant divergence in per capita incomes between its rich and poor states make it an interesting case study on the implications of economic migration within a fast-growing emerging economy. In this podcast, economists Prakash Loungani and Sriram Balasubramanian discuss how consumption levels in India's rural and urban areas may be driving the migration trends within its borders.   Transcript

Read the working paper HERE

Sep 25, 2020

The pandemic is adding pressure on society's most vulnerable and could lead to a significant rise in income inequality. In this podcast, IMF Managing Director, Kristalina Georgieva, talks with Max Lawson and Nadia Daar on the Equals podcast. The podcast was created by Oxfam International and focuses on inequality. Georgieva shares her views on the direction of inequality, the IMF's role in stabilizing economies amid the pandemic, and offers a glimpse into her own life experiences growing up in the Eastern Bloc.

Transcript

Blog

Jul 30, 2020

After a century-long decline, mortality rates in the U.S. have flattened- even increased for non-Hispanic whites in middle age. In this podcast, Nobel laureate, Angus Deaton describes how people are dying at an alarming rate from suicides, drug overdoses and alcohol-related diseases, and how the largest increases in mortality are happening among those without a bachelor's degree.

In their latest book titled Deaths of Despair, Deaton and Princeton economist Anne Case look at how approaches to healthcare and inequality relate to the rising mortality rates. Professor Deaton was invited by the Institute for Capacity Development to present their research to IMF economists. He joined me afterward to talk about the B.A./non-B.A. divide in the United States.

Transcript

Read the REVIEW of Deaths of Despair by Kenneth Rogoff.

Angus Deaton is Professor Emeritus at Princeton and Presidential Professor of Economics at the University of Southern California. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2015 for his work on consumption, poverty, and welfare.

May 18, 2020

While rich and poor are equally vulnerable to the debilitating physical effects of the coronavirus, economist Jonathan Ostry says the economic and social impact of the pandemic is much less equal. Ostry is Deputy Director of the Asia and Pacific Department at the IMF and in this podcast, he says the poor and the working class bear the brunt of pandemics and that policies need to pay specific attention to prevent long-term damage to the livelihoods of society's most vulnerable. Ostry's latest study on Inequality and pandemics is published by the Center for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) where he is a Research Fellow.

You can read Jonathan Ostry’s blog on how pandemics impact the poor at Blogs.imf.org

TRANSCRIPT

Dec 27, 2019

Populist leaders and movements are on the rise across the world, but why now? Populism has been around since Ancient Rome. In this podcast, economist Guido Tabellini says the 2008 global financial crisis and technology are driving the recent resurgence. Tabellini says with growing inequality people disappointed by the policies of the past that have excluded them from the benefits of the global economy are voting more along cultural identity lines. It’s the nationalists versus the cosmopolitans. Guido Tabellini is Professor of Political Economics at Bocconi University in Milan, Italy, and delivered the IMF’s Annual Richard Goode Lecture on his research.

Sep 27, 2019

Migration is on the front burner these days. We hear a lot about people moving from one country to the next, fleeing conflict or seeking a better life. But what about the movement of people within a country? Economist Tamim Bayoumi says a well-functioning economy has people moving around to maximize their own welfare and in turn maximize the system; a basic tenant of market economics. Bayoumi is coauthor of Stranded! How Rising Inequality Suppressed US Migration and Hurt Those “Left Behind. In this podcast, Bayoumi says increasing house price and income inequality has reduced long distance migration, the type most linked to jobs.

Tamim Bayoumi is Deputy Director in the IMF’s Strategy, Policy and Review Department.

 

Apr 25, 2019

Achieving inclusive growth is one of the critical challenges of our time. In this podcast, IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde opens a public discussion between IMF Chief Economist, Gita Gopinath, World Bank Chief Economist, Pinelopi Koujianou Goldberg and OECD Chief Economist, Laurence Boone, about how to ensure economic growth benefits the many and not only the few. In her introduction, Lagarde points out that it’s a first for these three multilateral institutions to have women Chief Economists at the same time. The seminar entitled Income Inequality Matters took place during the IMF World-Bank Spring Meetings.

Gita Gopinath is the Economic Counsellor and Director of the Research Department at the IMF.

Pinelopi Koujianou Goldberg is the Chief Economist of the World Bank Group.

Laurence Boone is the OECD Chief Economist, G-20 Finance Deputy and Head of the economics department.

Oct 25, 2018

Not everyone benefits equally from strong economic growth. And while most economists focus on optimizing policies to produce higher growth, economist Jonathan Ostry argues that it is how the benefits from that growth are distributed that will ultimately determine whether the growth will last. Ostry is deputy director of the IMF’s Research Department, and says the supply-side policies­ commonly prescribed by economists to increase growth often benefit disproportionately the wealthier segments of society and result in economies that are less resilient.

Jonathan Ostry is author of several books and articles on inequality, including Growth or Inclusion? featured in the June 2018 edition of Finance and Development Magazine. Ostry’s latest book Confronting Inequality, which he coauthored with IMF colleagues Prakash Loungani and Andrew Berg, is published by Columbia University Press.

Feb 9, 2018

Incomes for Europe’s youth declined after the 2007 global financial crisis—largely due to unemployment. And while things have recovered somewhat, the trend toward short-term work and less stable jobs has meant incomes have not grown and young people are now more likely to fall into poverty. Meanwhile, Europeans 65 and older have seen incomes increase by 10 percent. New research by IMF staff looks at this Growing Inequality and Poverty Across Generations in Europe, and how it could have long term effects on Europe’s economy. In this podcast, coauthor Alexander Pitt says when the young are better off, we’re all better off.

Alexander Pitt, Senior Economist in the IMF’s European department, and co-author of A Dream Deferred: Inequality and Poverty Across Generations in Europe.

Mar 16, 2016

While it was widely expected that globalization would reduce inequality, income disparities between skilled and unskilled workers has only increased in recent years. In this podcast we ask Nobel Laureate Eric Maskin, why the global markets haven’t offered better economic opportunities for the world’s poorest. 

Contributors:

Eric Maskin, Professor at Harvard University, and 2007 Nobel Laureate.

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