Branko Milanovic
A leading scholar on income inequality, Branko Milanovic, has been announced as the new Centennial Professor at LSE’s International Inequalities Institute (III). He will collaborate on research and teach postgraduate students on a part-time basis.
A former Lead Economist in the World Bank's research department, Professor Milanovic is author of Global Inequality: a new framework for the age of globalization, The Haves and the Have-Nots: a brief and idiosyncratic history of global inequality and numerous articles on the global income distribution and historical inequalities in societies as diverse as Roman Empire and pre-revolutionary France.
Commenting on the appointment, Professor Milanovic said: “I am hugely excited to be joining the International Inequalities Institute at LSE. The Institute is one of the best places to study economic and social inequality. Rising or high inequality is related to a number of negative societal outcomes: lower growth, erosion of democracy, higher crime and mortality, tax evasion. Halting the growth in inequalities that we are seeing across the world is one of the great challenges of our time. It is important that institutes like the III exist and I look forward to contributing to its work.”
Mike Savage, III Director and Martin White Professor in Sociology, said: “I am delighted to announce that the III will be hosting Branko Milanovic as Centennial Professor from 2020. Professor Milanovic is world renowned for leading the study of global inequality, through developing a composite trans-national database on changing income shares across more than 90 per cent of the world’s population. He is one of the leading economists to have shown how inequalities are far from being a narrow specialism but shed light on numerous political and social problems and, in his prize winning book Global Inequalities, he has shown how economic growth in emerging economies has seen the substantial growth of a 'global middle class', rivalling the increase in the fortunes of global elites in relative, even if not in absolute terms.”
Professor Milanovic will spend one term a year at the III from 2020-2023, where he will contribute actively to teaching and research. While serving as LSE Centennial Professor, he will continue to serve on the faculty at the Graduate Center at the City University of New York, where he also regularly teaches. He will also continue his affiliation with the Stone Center on Socio-Economic Inequality, and will help to build relations between III and the Stone Center.
Branko Milanovic was hosted by III in May 2019, where he spoke on The Global Distribution of Income and the Politics of Globalization.
His upcoming publication, Capitalism, Alone: The Future of the System That Rules the World, will be available in October 2019.