Twenty five years more life: the real prize for tackling inequality

January 22, 2019
Following yesterday’s post introducing Oxfam’s new Davos Report, one of its authors, Max Lawson, reflects on the links between inequality and public services like health and education Imagine having 25 years more life.  Imagine what you could do.  Twenty-five years more to spend with your children, your grandchildren. In pursuing your hopes and dreams. In Sao Paulo, Brazil, a person
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Davos is here again, so it’s time for Oxfam’s new report – here’s what it says

January 21, 2019
First of two posts to mark the start of Davos. Tomorrow Max Lawson digs into the links between inequality and public services. How do you follow a series of Killer Facts that have really got people’s attention? Every year the world’s political and economic leaders gather in Davos, and in recent years, Oxfam has done its best to persuade them,
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Davos is here again, so it’s time for Oxfam’s new report on prosperity and poverty, wealth and work.

January 22, 2018
As the masters of the universe (or at least planet earth) gather in Davos, here’s a curtain-raiser from Deborah Hardoon, Oxfam’s Deputy Head of Research, introducing its new report. Gotta love a data release. Every year I look forward to the release of the Credit Suisse Global Wealth databook. An immense piece of work, developed over a decade and led by
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Of Jousting Knights and Jewelled Swords: a feminist reflection on Davos

February 3, 2017
Nancy Folbre is a feminist economist and professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst  What kind of an economic system delivers as much wealth to 8 men at the top as to the bottom half of the global population? It’s easier to describe shocking levels inequality than to explain them. Activist challenges to the power of the top
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Why Davos should be talking about Disability

January 19, 2017
In what I think had better be the last blog for Davos, Jodie Thorpe, IDS and Yogesh Ghore, Coady International Institute present important new research on a rising issue on the development agenda Can markets include and benefit some of the most marginalized people on earth, such as persons with disabilities? The leaders of government, business and third sector organizations gathered
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A Song for Davos: your chance to vote on best song on inequality

January 18, 2017
Twitter definitely beats work. On Monday, Oxfam’s Max Lawson kicked off a discussion on the best song about economic inequality, which got enough candidates for an impromptu ‘Song for Davos’ competition – check these out and vote. Creedence Clearwater Revival, Fortunate Son [Max Lawson] Bob Marley, Them Belly Full [me, with post on Marley v IMF] Motorhead, Eat the Rich
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8 men now own the same as the poorest half of the world: the Davos killer fact just got more deadly

January 16, 2017
It’s Davos this week, which means it’s time for Oxfam’s latest global ‘killer fact’ on extreme inequality. Since our first calculation in 2014, these have helped get inequality onto the agenda of the global leaders assembled in Switzerland. This year, the grabber of any headlines not devoted to the US presidential inauguration on Friday is that it’s worse than we
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Davos: new briefing on global wealth, inequality and an update of that 85 richest = 3.5 billion poorest killer fact

January 19, 2015
This is Davos week, and over on the Oxfam Research team’s excellent new Mind the Gap blog, Deborah Hardoon has an update on the mind-boggling maths of global inequality . Wealth data from Credit Suisse, finds that the 99% have been getting less and less of the economic pie over the past few years as the 1% get more. By next year,
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Should we (and everyone in Davos) worry about extreme wealth? New Oxfam briefing

January 21, 2013
Good to see Oxfam highlighting inequality in its media briefing ahead of this week’s annual gathering of power & plutocrats in Davos. Because inequality is about the relationship between different social groups, it is inherently more political and more controversial than poverty. As our head of campaigns Ben Phillips, who packs a mean sound bite, said in his Al Jazeera
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