Caroline Freund and Sarah Oliver (Peterson Institute): The Origins of the Superrich: The Billionaire Characteristics Database. Counting to a billion: Alex Cuadros on how that list of the world’s richest people got made. Introducing Kuznets waves: Branko Milanovic on how income inequality waxes and wanes over the very long run. Dean Baker reviews Global Inequality: A New Approach for the Age of Globalization by Branko Milanovic (and more and more). Ana Swanson interviews Caroline Freund, author of Rich People Poor Countries: The Rise of Emerging-market Tycoons and Their Mega Firms. Amber A’Lee Frost on the declining taste of the global super-rich: Today’s patrons of the arts are less interested in opera and ballet, and more interested in novelty furniture and enormous sculptures of their own faces.
Ingrid Robeyns (Utrecht): Having Too Much (“This paper defends the limitarian doctrine, which entails the view that it is morally objectionable to be rich”). Don Watkins on how economic inequality complaints are just a cover for anti-rich prejudice: It’s not fair to blame individuals for other people’s wrongdoing — yet we let envy-peddlers get away with it when unfairly attacking rich people.
