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Branko Milanovic Profile picture
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1 Jul, 4 tweets, 2 min read
My argument in "C,A" that China is capitalist is not based on the composition of CPC, but on the share of VA produced by the private sector, private sector role employment (incl. the self-employed in agriculture) & in fixed investments.
Some numbers on the declining state role:
Share of the state sector in total GDP.
Share of the state sector in total urban employment.
Private vs state sector in fixed investment:

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Branko Milanovic Profile picture
29 Jun
(Long thread)
I am rereading vol. 2-3 of Kolakowski's magisterial "Main currents of Marxism" (read it in 1982-3; written in late 1970s). Will write a post on it later.
The erudition is awe-inspiring. Writing excellent. Clear, very logical sentences. The use of irony is sparing.
Pent-up anger is never allowed to escape and eclipse the thinking.
But some parts are dogmatic and ultra-deterministic; plus, the current Chinese experience throws a very different light on USSR in the 1920s. That experience was, of course, still in future when Kolakowski wrote.
Kolakowski has the straight line: Marx=Lenin=Trotsky=Stalin=Lukacz etc.
In econ, it leads him to treat War Communism, NEP and collectivization as the same thing, or as everything inevitably leading to collectivization & mass murder. No "degrees of freedom".
Read 5 tweets
Branko Milanovic Profile picture
22 Jun
Today's EHR workshop discussed 3 excellent papers. I will show one graph from each.
Bleynat, Challu, Segal on long-term growth & inequality in Mexico.
The real wage (blue) increased substantially in 1960-80 after which it dropped precipitously, to go up again a bit more recently.
BCS conclude that policy played a major role in wage repression after the 1980 debt crisis.
de Pleijt & van Zanden find that women's wages almost equaled men's in Northern Europe after the Black Death, but then decreased to some 50-70% of men's in 17th C.
They conclude that a tight labor market after the pandemic pulled women's wages up; but the effects lessened as growth slackened.
Scott looks at millionaires in the UK after WW1 & finds that their numbers peaked in the 1920s.
Read 5 tweets
Branko Milanovic Profile picture
19 Jun
What I meant by saying that the Hewlett Foundation article was "ignorant" was that the authors seem to view "development" as a Western concept. Their view of history is entirely US-centric. "Development" as conscious state policy to increase income started with Japan and Germany.
It continued with the Soviet Union.
Included numerous authors such as Feldman, Leontieff, Kuznets in the USSR, Gerschenkron, Arthur Lewis and many others. To imagine that it somehow starts w/ Truman, Kennedy or modernization theory is to ignore about a century of development.
Thus the idea of "development" simply means that to improve people's lives higher real income matters: it gives you good housing, running water, sewage, electricity, washing machine, car, wifi and many other things that make lives better.
Read 4 tweets
Branko Milanovic Profile picture
18 Jun
The term "equity" is a legitimate, but very ideological term. "Equity" for Marxists cannot, by definition, exist in a capitalist society. "Equity" for Hayekians means that income is made while formal rules are observed.
"Equity" for a Friedmanite means that incomes are obtained in a free (not necessarily monopoly-free) market.
Inequality is an observable fact: it simply says your income is higher than mine; you are wealthier than I.
"Equity" is thus often the term of choice for those who minimize importance of inequalities or believe that a given inequality is justifiable because it is "equitable".
With "equity", you immediately get into a realm of ideological discussion where things are vague.
Read 4 tweets
Branko Milanovic Profile picture
17 Jun
Thinking last night about Mark's post, I have to say that I have a somewhat different interpretation of Schiavone (which I think is closer to his original text).
Schiavone says that Roman economy could not develop because of (A) orientation toward plunder and conquest that led to enslavement of people => (B) cheapness of such slave labor => (C) consideration that labor is demeaning.
This in turn (D) made Romans never envisage the idea of replacing labor by machines.
But in my interpretation (C) is a derivative (not to say "reflection") of the "objective" conditions of productions (A+B).
Read 5 tweets
Branko Milanovic Profile picture
15 Jun
This very simple table (not even a correlation) has produced apoplexy in some people. It is not part of a paper, it is not a study; it is simply a *difference* on a *difference* table: change in level of autocracy vs change in level of GDPpc.
There may be many problems with it. People started throwing issues as if it were a 100-page paper: perhaps growth rates before the change were high?; perhaps growth is unsustainable? perhaps there is convergence? perhaps counterfactual would have been better? Perhaps....
Because when one believes democracy must be good for growth he will meet every piece of contrary evidence with comments like this.
If this was a list of 10 most improved in democracy countries & all had above-average growth people would not insist on the points insisted here.
Read 5 tweets

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