Please join us in the Economics Department Conference room to say goodbye to students and faculty leaving before next week’s official Economics Party (same location .  Everyone is welcome to discuss Elephant shapes with plenty of Michaelanglo’s pizza. To mark this remarkable moment in history,  we review and discuss the Elephant diagram (briefly) starting with Chris Giles three minute FT video (not cats).  Does this now famous global growth incidence curve really explain recent populist backlash?  Is it an Elephant or a Mastodon?

Don’t worry there is a happy ending… average OECD middle class workers incomes did not actually fall, they gained less, perhaps relative deprivation matters too…

What can we do?  Nothing right now.  So please come share a wonderful festive-beverage with Michelangelo’s pizza, freshly delivered at 7:20 and 9:20pm…   (thanks finance guy).

If possible please RSVP to Anglea or gradecon@fordham.edu but come join us anyway, another pizza is just a phone call away. It will be fun.

Growth incidence curves were very rare a decade ago. Now we have a famous one that explains everything and looks like an elephant.  Or does it?  Come to the party and see.

Just in case you miss the party, here is the video and a few holiday readings (avoid the original 2015 World Bank article, they don’t even call it an elephant).  Here is the confusing Chris Giles video, but at least he  draws the elephant in real time…

Actually the best short summary is the Economists’ “Shooting an Elephant” which includes the real elephant photo above and this very clear chart, almost all we need really, except now we have a mastodon, not a modern elephant, as in the original.

More holiday reading: reassuring findings, but someone should have told the voters… Adam Corlett is thorough enough to elicit a response from  Lakner and Milanov the same month (September).

References (sorry, not very cheerful i know):

Corlett, Adam. (2016) “Examining an elephant: globalisation and the lower middle class of the rich world.” Resolution Foundation, London.

DESA, U. N(2013). “Inequality matters. Report on the World Social Situation 2013.” New York, United Nations.

Economist (2016) Global inequality: Shooting an elephant via@TheEconomist

Lakner, Christoph, and Branko Milanovic (2016). “Response to Adam Corlett’s “Examining an elephant: globalisation and the lower middle class of the rich world”.

Milanovic, Branko, and Christopher Lakner (2015) “Global Income Distribution: From the Fall of the Berlin Wall to the Great Recession” The World Bank Economic Review 30 (2): 203-232. doi: 10.1093/wber/lhv03 http://class.povertylectures.com/WB_publication.pdf

Milanovic, Branko (2011). Worlds apart: Measuring international and global inequality. Princeton University Press.

Milanovic, Branko (2016) Global inequality: A new approach for the age of globalization, Harvard University Press.

Piketty, Thomas(2014). “Capital in the 21st Century.” Cambridge: Harvard University Figures

Porter, Eduardo (2014). A global boom, but only for some. New York Times.

Porter, Eduardo (2016). On Trade, Angry Voters Have a Point, NY Times, March 16th Wynne, Mark A2011). “Will China ever become as rich as the US?” Economic Letter, 6.

Giles and Dannon (2016) Globalisation ‘not to blame’ for income woes, study says Financial Times, Sept 13th 2016 Video version