Correction: I spoke of "gains in global distribution." Actually little is known about *global* distribution proper. What we know is the evolution of the (pop-weighted) *inter*-*national* distribution, which ignores the evolution of domestic distribution in each country. It is known that in the last 40 years or so domestic distribution has become more polarized inside the U.S., China, India, Russia, etc. So, there are three trends:
(1) the center of the (pop-weighted) international distribution has shifted to the right (no surprise), (2) the shape has gone from bimodal (big bulk on the left tail, thin in between, and a smaller bulk on the right tail) to roughly log normal, and (3) domestic distribution in largely populated countries has become more dispersed. Short of measuring each of these effects, it's hard to know exactly what happened to overall global distribution. That's the Sala-i-Martin vs. Milanovic debate. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
