Monday 4 March 2013

Income Inequality Intricacies!

Students who attended the lounge today witnessed an amazing presentation by Justus Timmers on "Income Inequality in the U.K. and Beyond".
 
There was some pre-talk fun today that those who didn't attend the lounge missed. The door of the PG Hub refused to respond to our student card swipes, God knows why. All of us spent the first twenty minutes giving red carpet welcomes to the people who came. A second fun fact: All of us had arrived by 6.45 p.m, save one person - Justus! A totally trolling Grigoriy added to the fun by calling Justus and asking, "Are you coming to the research lounge.....since you are the speaker?" Whatte comic drama, I say. :P
 
Enough with the bantering. Now, a few words about Justus: Before joining the MSc in Behavioral Economics in Warwick, Justus studied Economics and Geography at UCL focusing on structural change, labour, development and inequality. At the height of the 2011 "Occupy London" protests, he was working in M&A at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch office, not more than a few meters from the core of the protest camp. Sorry, Carsten, I copied this from your introduction about him on Facebook. Thing is, his profile is very long (and hence impressive), which makes it tough to remember.
 
Today's presentation was on "Income Inequality in the U.K. and beyond". Justus started off by showing the pictures from the "Occupy London" protests (and oh, my, he was working pretty close to where it was happening :O). A puzzling fact is that when measured on a scale between 10 percentiles and 90 percentiles, income inequality seems to have reduced, but the popular metrics indicators (Gini, Atkinson and general entropy) show that inequality has increased! Oh, and the Gini index is based on the concept that if we pick two people at random, their income on average will differ by twice the Gini coefficient of the mean. General Entropy says where income is concentrated (at high or low levels), and the Atkinson index shows the welfare aspects.

Then the talk turned to the question of "equal outcomes vs. equal opportunities". And then at this point, Justus brought in quite an interesting diagram to represent these, and it had to be put in here:

Now we know why Justus said, "Sometimes, the conservative outlook makes me happier". :P
 
The "usual suspects" for causing income inequality are: gender discrimination, discrimination in terms of ethnicity, region, skills, and age. (Now that last one we can all identify ourselves with. Looking for a job on the web: "Oh, I match the description perfectly!"...but, when we scroll down, "Minimum five years experience needed.")
 
One more reason that all of us know is in line with Pogge's (1992) view (also Justus's favourite view) that "Our inequality is worsened by the lack of global accountability by politicians, and the fact that the financial elite have access to global diplomats".
 
Justus ended the discussion with "I need your opinion on income inequality. But, before, that, if you people know any rich people, please introduce me to them". :P
 
During the discussion that followed, an intersting point was brought to light by Grigoriy and clarified by Lukas in the following words - "I don't know how the rich people managed to keep their assets on track during the recent financial crisis, but they did." Lukas.
 
A moment of silence followed.

 
"Bailouts", came a voice, stating it as if it were obvious - that was Konrad. Seriously, people, how much can a person laugh? :D
 
On that note, the meeting ended with Lukas, on Abhinay's request, asking the audience to talk to each other and get "global exposure", so that students can receive more than just the course at Warwick.
 
The snacks, and drinks, of course, keep getting better with every week (it is the same snacks, they just seem to be getting better since we love them). As Lukas said, "Ah, thank you, Abhinay!" :) 



 

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