Lezione del 16 dicembre 2025

Si consiglia di osservare le tendenze aggiornate sulla diseguaglianza per le diverse macroaree riportate alla URL di cui sopra.

Messaggio sintetico dell'intervento: Large-scale surveys of US attitudes reveal widespread misperceptions that determine economic biases. Stefanie Stantcheva, professor of economics at Harvard, explains that Americans’ misplaced optimism about social mobility makes them less likely to support tax and spending programs to help the poor. Similarly, Americans overestimate the number of immigrants in the United States and the percentage of immigrants who are poor, breeding a general hostility to immigrants. She finds that differences in perceptions align with political viewpoints. Her comments are from the “Combating Inequality” conference at the Peterson Institute for International Economics on October 17–18, 2019.

This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences. Why do some states enjoy wealth, security, health and nutrition while others face poverty, unemployment, lack of health care and safety? James Robinson is a political scientist and economist. Professor Robinson teaches Economics, History and Government at Harvard University. His main research interests lie in the study of the economies of developing countries.

It is among the grandest topics in scholarship: Why do some nations, such as the United States, become wealthy and powerful, while others remain stuck in poverty? And why do some of those powers, from ancient Rome to the modern Soviet Union, expand and then collapse? From Adam Smith and Max Weber to the current day, scores of writers have grappled with these questions. Some scholars, like Weber, have argued that religious or cultural differences create vastly different economic outcomes among countries. Others have asserted that a lack of natural resources or technical expertise has prevented poor countries from creating self-sustaining economic growth. Economists Daron Acemoglu of MIT and James Robinson of Harvard University have another answer: Politics makes the difference. Countries that have what they call "inclusive" political governments — those extending political and property rights as broadly as possible, while enforcing laws and providing some public infrastructure — experience the greatest growth over the long run. By contrast, Acemoglu and Robinson assert, countries with "extractive" political systems — in which power is wielded by a small elite — either fail to grow broadly or wither away after short bursts of economic expansion.

French economist Thomas Piketty caused a sensation in early 2014 with his book on a simple, brutal formula explaining economic inequality: r is greater than g (meaning that return on capital is generally higher than economic growth). Here, he talks through the massive data set that led him to conclude: Economic inequality is not new, but it is getting worse, with radical possible impacts.