‘Few, if any [government], have set out recovery strategies that include the goal to reduce inequalities as part of future pandemic preparedness. Yet an essential truth of this emergency is that stronger security depends on fairer societies. But that is not the whole story...
‘In a working paper published last week by the US National Bureau of Economic Research, the Nobel economist Angus Deaton concludes that, at least in terms of global income, inequalities have decreased. He claims that the views of several respected authorities, ranging from fellow Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz to the UN Development Programme, are plain wrong. His argument is that high-income nations have suffered higher rates of mortality than low-income and middle-income countries. These higher mortality rates have translated into larger falls in wealth. This is an important observation...
‘The reality is that health and prosperity go hand-in-hand. During this pandemic, the smaller the number of deaths, the larger the income of a nation. The result has been that incomes per person in wealthier countries have fallen more than those in low-income countries. International income inequalities have therefore decreased. Nations have converged, not diverged. As Deaton notes, the pandemic “has brought countries closer together, not further apart”.
Read here (The Lancet, Feb 6, 2021)
