François Bourguignon has shown that, after a century of increasing inequality between nations up until the 1980s, inequality has begun to decline at an accelerating pace. This historical reversal, which can be seen in comparisons of GDP per capita, purchasing power or relative income distribution, is mainly explained by the decoupling of growth trends between developed and developing countries. This reversal raises the question of whether inequalities within nations (on the rise) are replacing inequalities between nations (on the decline).
F. Bourguignon invited us to consider the world's medium-term prospects. In his view, global equalization is set to continue, due both to the slow growth of developed countries (because of their level of public debt, the regularization of the financial sector and the relocalization imposed by structural adjustment to globalization) and to the still rapid growth of emerging economies - a growth that should be largely linked to that of world trade, particularly South-South, and to the emergence of considerable domestic markets.
Three questions remain unanswered: the fate of Africa (its growth is likely to be mainly cyclical due to the absence of structural transformations), the risk of a general explosion in domestic inequalities as a result of the rise in high salaries, and the growing gap between the perception of inequalities and their reality.
Returning to the question of perception, the discussion highlighted the fact that it is the extreme disparities, often of limited statistical relevance, that inform the vision that citizens may have of their society. It also highlighted the shift in debates on justice from redistribution to primary distribution. Finally, it raised the question of the future of democracies, whose prosperity is generally associated with major technological revolutions, in a context of economic stagnation.
François Bourguignon is Director of Studies at EHESS and President of the Paris School of Economics. His books include The Impact of Macroeconomic Policies on Poverty and Income Distribution (with M. Bussolo and L. Pereira, Palgrave, 2008) and Itinéraires de l'économie mondiale. Entretiens avec F. Boutin-Dufresne (Nota Bene, 2010).
