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Does inequality matter when poverty is falling?

To moral and political philosophers steeped in the theory of justice, inequality in society may simply be ethically distasteful

Regarding China, the report said it "spends more than twice as much of its budget on health than India, and almost four times as much on welfare spending
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Regarding China, the report said it "spends more than twice as much of its budget on health than India, and almost four times as much on welfare spending. Photo: Reuters

Pranab Bardhan
There is widespread concern about increasing or high economic inequality in many countries, both rich and poor. At a global level, according to the World Inequality Report 2018, the richest 1 per cent in the world reaped 27 per cent of the growth in world income between 1980 and 2016, while the bottom 50 per cent of the population got only 12 per cent. Over roughly the same period, however, absolute poverty by standard measures has generally been on the decline in most countries. By the widely-used World Bank estimates, in 2015 only about 10 per cent of the world
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