The wrong yardstick

摘要

The theme of inequality has loomed large in recent years for delegates of the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos. This year's gathering of plutocrats is no different, thanks in part to a much-publicised forecast from Ox-fam, a charity, that the world's wealthiest 1% will soon hold more net wealth than the other 99% put together. Oxfam's projection (see left-hand chart) should be treated with caution. The charity uses a straight-line projection of the trend in wealth shares in 201014 to forecast that just 50m adults will hold the majority of the world's household wealth by next year. That is both too simplistic and arbitrary. If Oxfam had based its forecast on the trend in 2000-14, then the crossover point would have been 2035.