Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Tables
- Preface
- 1 Welcome to the twenty-first century
- 2 A global economy out of balance
- 3 The rise of the emerging-market multinationals
- 4 The new demography
- 5 From dictatorship to democracy and failed states
- 6 A disparate world
- 7 The quest for sustainability
- 8 The global powers of the twenty-first century
- 9 Coping with uncertainty and complexity
- References
- Index
6 - A disparate world
Inequality and poverty
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Tables
- Preface
- 1 Welcome to the twenty-first century
- 2 A global economy out of balance
- 3 The rise of the emerging-market multinationals
- 4 The new demography
- 5 From dictatorship to democracy and failed states
- 6 A disparate world
- 7 The quest for sustainability
- 8 The global powers of the twenty-first century
- 9 Coping with uncertainty and complexity
- References
- Index
Summary
KEY GLOBAL TURNING POINTS
Income inequality across countries has decreased since the turn of the twenty-first century. Meanwhile, inequality within countries has continued to increase, posing difficult social and political problems in developed and developing countries alike.
One of the most intriguing pieces of news coming out of the World Economic Forum’s 2011 meeting in Davos was that yawning economic disparities were identified by the global economic, financial, and business elites gathered at the idyllic Swiss mountain resort town as one of the two most significant global risks facing the world, together with failures in global governance (The Economist, January 20, 2011). Such economic disparities manifest themselves in various forms, including poverty, and income and wealth inequality. Poverty has been on the decrease for the last few decades thanks to rapid growth in emerging economies, although it has increased in some countries, including both developed and developing ones. The same is generally true of income and wealth inequality. Whether you look at the data within or across countries makes a huge difference, and helps identify yet another turning point into the twenty-first century.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Global Turning PointsUnderstanding the Challenges for Business in the 21st Century, pp. 86 - 104Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2012