Historical Perspectives on Global Inequality
A Review Essay
Abstract
The important role of inequality in world politics and the world economy today encourages economic historians to examine the long-term evolution of inequality and its determinants. Recently, Branko Milanovic’s book on “Global Inequality” and Walter Scheidel’s monograph “The Great Leveler” focus on historical trends to gain insight into current and future inequality. For some countries and periods, however, income inequalities are difficult to estimate. I argue in this review essay that complementary methods focusing on inequalities of health, nutrition, and education can provide estimates that allow cross-checking problematic income inequality ratings. The methods presented can also be used for early indicators of inequality in the histories of African, Middle Eastern, Asian and American regions.