International Journal For Multidisciplinary Research

E-ISSN: 2582-2160   •   Impact Factor: 9.24

A Widely Indexed Open Access Peer Reviewed Multidisciplinary Bi-monthly Scholarly International Journal

Call for Paper Volume 8, Issue 4 (July-August 2026) Submit your research before last 3 days of August to publish your research paper in the issue of July-August.
Submit Research Paper Join as a Reviewer

Plagiarism is checked by the leading plagiarism checker TurnItIn

Call for Paper

Volume 8 Issue 4
July-August 2026

Submit your research paper

Indexing Partners
Academia Advanced Sciences Index Bielefeld Academic Search Engine CiteSeer DRJI Google Scholar Independent Search Engine & Directory Network ISI (International Scientific Indexing) Issuu Mendeley Research Networks
RefSeek ResearcherId - Thomson Reuters ResearchGate Scirus Scribd Semantic Scholar UTeM - Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka Wiki for Call for Papers WorldCat Zenodo

Global Macro & the International Financial System 


Author(s) Anika Shah
Country India
Abstract This paper examines an apparent contradiction in global inequality trends: relative inequality between countries has declined in recent decades, even as absolute income gaps remain large. Drawing on Branko Milanovic's framework of three historical eras of global inequality — the Great Divergence, the Three Worlds period, and the recent Great Convergence — the study investigates how these two measures of inequality can coexist and what this means for global capital allocation. Using the Milanovic Global Gini Database, the analysis constructs three data samples covering global inequality trends, country-specific patterns in China (including a rural-urban breakdown), and a comparative case in the United States, spanning approximately 1980 to 2015. The findings show a modest downward trend in global relative inequality alongside rising within-country inequality in both an emerging economy (China) and an advanced economy (the United States). This divergence between cross-country convergence and rising internal disparity is explained through the distinction between relative and absolute inequality measures. The paper concludes that global convergence is real but incomplete: faster growth in emerging markets narrows proportional income gaps, while structural differences keep absolute income levels far apart. These findings carry implications for global investment allocation, suggesting growth-driven opportunities in emerging markets alongside persistent risk tied to unresolved structural and distributional imbalances.
Keywords global inequality, income convergence, Gini coefficient, emerging markets, absolute vs. relative inequality, capital allocation, China, global investment
Published In Volume 8, Issue 4, July-August 2026
Published On 2026-08-16
View / Download PDF File

Share this



E-ISSN 2582-2160
CrossRef

CrossRef DOI prefix of IJFMR is 10.36948/ijfmr

Downloads
Research Paper Format Copyright Permission Form and Undertaking Form

All research papers published on this website are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, and all rights belong to their respective authors/researchers.

CC-BY-SA Open Access

About IJFMR
Fees & Payment
Current Issue
Publication Archive 		Submit Research Paper
Track Submission Status
Publication Guidelines
Publication Ethics
Peer Review & Plagiarism 		Join as a Reviewer
Editors & Reviewers
Reviewer Referral Program
Get Reviewer Membership Certi. 		Website/Journal Policies
Usage Policy
Content Policies
Privacy Policy
Contact Us +91-9687-828-838 editor@ijfmr.com
Powered by Sky Research Publication and Journals