Branko Milanovic

Branko Milanovic is a Visiting Presidential Professor at the Graduate Center City University of New York and Senior Scholar at the Stone Center for Socio-economic Inequality. He obtained his Ph. D. in economics (1987) from the University of Belgrade with a dissertation on income inequality in Yugoslavia. He served as lead economist in the World Bank’s Research Department for almost 20 years, leaving to write his seminal book on global income inequality, Worlds Apart (2005). He was senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington (2003-2005) and has held teaching appointments at the University of Maryland (2007-2013) and at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University (1997- 2007).

Branko’s main area of work is income inequality, in individual countries and globally, including in pre-industrial societies. In addition to numerous papers for the World Bank, he has published articles on these topics in Economic Journal, Review of Economics and Statistics, Journal of Economic Literature, and Journal of Political Philosophy, among others. His book, The Haves and the Have-nots (2011) was selected by The Globalist as the 2011 Book of the Year. His new book, Global Inequality (2016), was awarded the Bruno Kreisky Prize for the best political book of 2016 and was translated into twelve languages. It addresses economic and political effects of globalization, including the concept of successive “Kuznets waves” of inequality, largely driven, since the first industrial revolution, by technology and globalization. In October 2017, Branko was awarded (jointly with Mariana Mazzucato) the 2018 Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Knowledge.

Post Archive

15 December 2020
Branko Milanovic dissects the cultural roots of the West's response to COVID-19 and compares them to experiences in East Asian countries. In  October 2019, Johns…
09 November 2020
Branko Milanovic on the lessons we should learn from the Trump era. Now as Trump is being made ready to enter history, many publications are reviewing his presidency, as…
03 November 2020
This is a short, less than 700 words, piece that “Globe and Mail” asked me to write about the forthcoming US election. They got what they apparently did not expect and wanted me…
29 October 2020
Markovits, D. (2019) The Meritocracy Trap: How America's Foundational Myth Feeds Inequality, Dismantles the Middle Class, and Devours the Elite. Penguin Random House. ISBN…
09 October 2020
Branko Milanovic argues that, in some cases, literature can help shed light on how inequality was historically understood and felt. Can we use literature to learn more about…
02 October 2020
Branko Milanovic on the intersection of inequality and the pandemic. Inequality is by definition multifaceted. Not only is there a difference between income and wealth inequality…
09 September 2020
Branko Milanovic argues that sometimes myths can help us to believe in the future. I prepared dinner for myself tonight. I am now, alone, in a house in Washington …
07 August 2020
Out of Italy by Fernand Braudel. Flammarion. 1991. ISBN-10: 2080135007 Fernand Braudel wrote several smaller (in size) books that dealt with his favorite themes of capitalism…
14 July 2020
Branko Milanovic explores the implications of citizenships' gradual transformation into a commodity. The modern idea of citizenship, after the French Revolution, is based on…
10 July 2020
Branko Milanovic explores Yuen Yuen Ang's new book that argues (some) corruption has played an important role in China's rapid growth. Yuen Yuen Ang, political science professor…
03 June 2020
Branko Milanovic on the limits of our ability to predict the post-pandemic future.  In one of his poems, Constantine Cavafy distinguished, in the art of foretelling…
29 May 2020
Branko Milanovic on the search for useful historical data. When I wrote “The haves and the have-nots” which is a book of inequality vignettes linked with three essays (…
21 May 2020
Branko Milanovic on the emergence of the study of interpersonal inequality. It is a question often asked: what do Ricardo and Marx have to say about interpersonal inequality…
14 May 2020
Branko Milanovic on why Trump represents unashamed neoliberalism.  Modern capitalism societies are built on a dichotomy: in the political space decisions are (to be)…
27 February 2020
Following on from his previous post, Branko Milanovic further explores the difficulty of comparing wealth over the ages and across societies.    A few days ago I…