Branko Milanovic

“CAPITALISM ALONE”. LEAD ECONOMIST IN WORLD BANK RESEARCH DEPARTMENT (1991-2013).

Visiting Presidential Professor at the Graduate Center City University of New York.

Branko Milanovic speaker, economy, world bank
English

Branko Milanovic is a Visiting Presidential Professor at the Graduate Center City University of New York. Previously he was lead economist in World Bank Research Department (1991-2013); College Park professor, University of Maryland (2007-2013); long-term visiting professor at SAIS, Johns Hopkins University (1997-2007) and senior associate at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington (2003-2005).

Branko Milanovic’s main area of work is income inequality, in individual countries and globally, including in pre-industrial societies. In addition to numerous papers for the World Bank, he has published articles on these topics in Economic Journal, Review of Economics and Statistics, Journal of Economic Literature, and Journal of Political Philosophy, among others. His book «The Haves and the Have-nots: A Brief and Idiosyncratic History of Global Inequality», was published in December 2010, translated in seven languages, and selected by The Globalist as 2011 Book of the Year.

His book, «Global Inequality» (2016), was awarded the Bruno Kreisky Prize for the best political book of 2016 and was translated into twelve languages. It addresses economic and political effects of globalization, including the concept of successive “Kuznets waves” of inequality, largely driven, since the first industrial revolution, by technology and globalization.

Most recently, his book «Capitalism Alone» is a provocative account of capitalism’s rise to global dominance and, as different models of capitalism vie for world leadership, a look into what the future may hold. Also, Milanovic argues that capitalism has triumphed because it works. It delivers prosperity and gratifies human desires for autonomy, but it comes with a moral price, pushing us to treat material success as the ultimate goal.

He is more widely known for his “elephant” curve that shows that those around the 70th-90th percentile global income, roughly corresponding to lower earners in the developed world, have missed out on real income growth over that last 20 years.

Branko Milanovic currently serves on the advisory board for Academics Stand Against Poverty (ASAP). In August 2013, he was included by Foreign Policy among the top 100 “twitterati” to follow. In November 2014, he became external fellow in Center for Global Development in Washington. He writes the blog globalinequality since May 2014. In October 2017, Milanovic was awarded (jointly with Mariana Mazzucato) the 2018 Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Knowledge.

He did his Ph.D. at the University of Belgrade in 1987 on the dissertation on economic inequality in Yugoslavia, using for the first time micro data from Yugoslav household surveys.

Capitalism Alone: The Future of the System That Rules the World.

Globalization, migration and future of middle class.

Global Inequality: A New Approach for the Age of Globalization.

Recent Trends in Global Income Distribution and their Political Implications.

Measures and Implications of Inequity in Income and Wealth.

Capitalism, Alone: The Future of the System That Rules the World.

A provocative account of capitalism’s rise to global dominance and, as different models of capitalism vie for world leadership, a look into what the future may hold.

We are all capitalists now. For the first time in human history, the globe is dominated by one economic system. In Capitalism, Alone, leading economist Branko Milanovic explains the reasons for this decisive historical shift since the days of feudalism and, later, communism. Surveying the varieties of capitalism, he asks: What are the prospects for a fairer world now that capitalism is the only game in town? His conclusions are sobering, but not fatalistic. Capitalism gets much wrong, but also much right—and it is not going anywhere. Our task is to improve it.

Milanovic argues that capitalism has triumphed because it works. It delivers prosperity and gratifies human desires for autonomy. But it comes with a moral price, pushing us to treat material success as the ultimate goal. And it offers no guarantee of stability. In the West, liberal capitalism creaks under the strains of inequality and capitalist excess. That model now fights for hearts and minds with political capitalism, exemplified by China, which many claim is more efficient, but which is more vulnerable to corruption and, when growth is slow, social unrest. As for the economic problems of the Global South, Milanovic offers a creative, if controversial, plan for large-scale migration. Looking to the future, he dismisses prophets who proclaim some single outcome to be inevitable, whether worldwide prosperity or robot-driven mass unemployment. Capitalism is a risky system. But it is a human system. Our choices, and how clearly we see them, will determine how it serves us.

Capitalism, Alone: The Future of the System That Rules the World.

Global Inequality: A New Approach for the Age of Globalization.

One of the world's leading economists of inequality, Branko Milanovic presents a bold new account of the dynamics that drive inequality on a global scale. Drawing on vast data sets and cutting-edge research, he explains the benign and malign forces that make inequality rise and fall within and among nations. He also reveals who has been helped the most by globalization, who has been held back, and what policies might tilt the balance toward economic justice. Global Inequality takes us back hundreds of years, and as far around the world as data allow, to show that inequality moves in cycles, fueled by war and disease, technological disruption, access to education, and redistribution. The recent surge of inequality in the West has been driven by the revolution in technology, just as the Industrial Revolution drove inequality 150 years ago. But even as inequality has soared within nations, it has fallen dramatically among nations, as middle-class incomes in China and India have drawn closer to the stagnating incomes of the middle classes in the developed world. A more open migration policy would reduce global inequality even further. Both American and Chinese inequality seems well entrenched and self-reproducing, though it is difficult to predict if current trends will be derailed by emerging plutocracy, populism, or war. For those who want to understand how we got where we are, where we may be heading, and what policies might help reverse that course, Milanovic's compelling explanation is the ideal place to start.

Global Inequality: A New Approach for the Age of Globalization.

The Haves and the Have-Nots : A Brief and Idiosyncratic History of Global Inequality.

Who is the richest person in the world, ever? Does where you were born affect how much money you'll earn over a lifetime? How would we know? Why- beyond the idle curiosity- do these questions even matter? In The Haves and the Have-Nots , Branko Milanovic, one of the world's leading experts on wealth, poverty, and the gap that separates them, explains these and other mysteries of how wealth is unevenly spread throughout our world, now and through time. Milanovic uses history, literature and stories straight out of today's newspapers, to discuss one of the major divisions in our social lives: between the haves and the have-nots. He reveals just how rich Elizabeth Bennet's suitor Mr. Darcy really was how much Anna Karenina gained by falling in love how wealthy ancient Romans compare to today's super-rich where in Kenyan income distribution was Obama's grandfather how we should think about Marxism in a modern world and how location where one is born determines his wealth. He goes beyond mere entertainment to explain why inequality matters, how it damages our economics prospects, and how it can threaten the foundations of the social order that we take for granted. Bold, engaging, and illuminating, The Haves and the Have-Nots teaches us not only how to think about inequality, but why we should.

The Haves and the Have-Nots : A Brief and Idiosyncratic History of Global Inequality.