Confronting Inequality: How Societies can Choose Inclusive Growth

How Societies can Choose Inclusive Growth

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Inequality has drastically increased in many countries around the globe over the past three decades. The widening gap between the very rich and everyone else is often portrayed as an unexpected outcome or as the trade-off we must accept to achieve economic growth. The book shows that inequality leads to weaker economic performance and proposes alternative policies capable of delivering more inclusive growth.
Jonathan D. Ostry, Prakash Loungani, and Andrew Berg demonstrate that the extent of inequality depends on the policies governments choose-such as whether to let capital move unhindered across national boundaries, how much austerity to impose, and how much to deregulate markets. While these policies do often confer growth benefits, they have also been responsible for much of the increase in inequality. In addition to improving access to health care and quality education, they call for redistribution from the rich to the poor and present evidence showing that redistribution does not hurt growth. Accessible to scholars across disciplines as well as to students and policy makers, Confronting Inequality is a rigorous and empirically rich book that is crucial for a time when many fear a new Gilded Age.