Max Roser | |
---|---|
Born | 1983 |
Academic career | |
Institution | Nuffield College, Oxford Oxford Martin School |
Field | Economics of income distribution, poverty, global development, global health |
Influences | Tony Atkinson, Amartya Sen, Angus Deaton, Hans Rosling |
Website | www www |
Max Roser (born 1983) is an economist and philosopher who focuses on large global problems such as poverty, disease, hunger, climate change, war, existential risks, and inequality. [1] [2] [3]
At the University of Oxford he is the director of the program on global development, based at the Oxford Martin School. [3]
He is the founder and director of the research publication Our World in Data. [4]
Roser was born in Kirchheimbolanden, Germany, a village close to the border with France. In 1999, he and a friend won a prize in the German youth science competition Jugend forscht with a model of a self-navigating vacuum cleaner. [5] Der Spiegel reported that he travelled the length of the Nile from the mouth to the source, and that he crossed the Himalayas and the Andes. [6]
He has two undergraduate degrees (in geoscience and philosophy) and two master's degrees (in economics, and philosophy). [6] Roser completed his dissertation in 2011 at the University of Innsbruck, Austria. [7]
In 2012, Inequality and poverty researcher Tony Atkinson hired Roser at the University of Oxford where he collaborated with Piketty, Morelli, and Atkinson. [8] In 2015, he established a research team at the University of Oxford which is studying global development. [9]
He founded Our World In Data, a scientific web publication with the goal to present "research and data to make progress against the world’s largest problems." [10] During the first years he financed his project by working as a bicycle tour guide around Europe. [11]
Our World In Data covers a range of aspects of development: global health, food provision, the growth and distribution of incomes, violence, rights, wars, technology, education, and environmental changes, among others. The publication makes use of data visualisations which are licensed under Creative Commons and are widely used in research, in the media, and as teaching material. [12]
In 2019 he worked with Y Combinator on Our World in Data. [13]
Roser has said that global poverty, inequality, existential risks, human rights abuse, and humanity's environmental impact are among the world's most severe problems. [1] [14]
About his motivation for this work he wrote "The mission of this work has never changed: from the first days in 2011 Our World in Data focussed on the big global problems and asked how it is possible to make progress against them. The enemies of this effort were also always the same: apathy and cynicism." [15] He said that "it is because the world is terrible still that it is so important to write about how the world became a better place." [16]
He is critical of the mass media's excessive focus on single events which he claims is not helpful in understanding "the long-lasting, forceful changes that reshape our world, as well as the large, long-standing problems that continue to confront us." [1] [17] [18] In contrast to the event-focussed reporting of the news media Roser advocates the adoption of a broader perspective on global change, and in particular a focus on those living in poverty. [18] The focus on the upper classes, especially in historical perspective, is misleading since it is not exposing the hardship of those in the worst living conditions. [19]
He advocates looking at larger trends in poverty, education, health and violence since these are slowly, but persistently changing the world and are neglected in the reporting of today's mass media. [18]
He is known for his research how global living conditions are changing and his visualisations of these trends. [20] [21] [22] He has shown that in many societies in the past a large share (over 40%) of children died. [23]
He said that there are three messages of his work: "The world is much better; The world is awful; The world can be much better". [16]
Roser's research is concerned with global problems such as poverty, climate change, child mortality and inequality. [2]
In 2015 research with Tony Atkinson, Brian Nolan and others he studied how the benefits from economic growth are distributed. [24] [25] [26]
In October 2019 he co-authored a study of child mortality. It was the first global study that mapped child death on the level of subnational district. [27] The study, published in Nature, was described as an important step to make action possible that further reduces child mortality. [28]
He and Felix Pretis found that the growth rate in CO2 emission intensity exceeded the projections of all climate scenarios. [29] With Jesus Crespo Cuaresma he studied the history of international trade and its impact on economic inequality. [30]
Roser has criticized the practice of focusing on the international poverty line alone. In his research he suggests a poverty at 10.89 international-$ per day. [31] The researchers say this is the minimum level people needed to have access to basic healthcare. The reason for the low global poverty line is to focus the attention on the world's very poorest population. [32] He proposes using several different poverty lines to understand what is happening to global poverty.
In global health research he studied the impact of poverty on poor health and disease and contributed to a textbook on global health. [33] [34]
His most cited article, coauthored with Hannah Ritchie and Esteban Ortiz-Ospina, is concerned with global population growth. [35]
Roser is a regular speaker at conferences where he presents empirical data on how the world is changing. [36] He is part of the Statistical Advisory Panel of UNDP. [37] UN Secretary-General António Guterres invited him to internal retreats attended by the heads of the UN institutions to speak about his global development research. [38]
Tina Rosenberg emphasised in The New York Times that Roser's work presents a "big picture that’s an important counterpoint to the constant barrage of negative world news." [39] Angus Deaton cites Roser in his book The Great Escape. [40] His research is cited in academic journals including Science, [41] Nature, [42] and The Lancet. [43] [44]
In 2019 he was listed in second place among the "World’s Top 50 Thinkers" by Prospect Magazine. [45]
In 2019 Our World in Data won the Lovie Award, the European web award, "in recognition of their outstanding use of data and the internet to supply the general public with understandable data-driven research – the kind necessary to invoke social, economic, and environmental change." [46]
In 2022 he was selected as one of "The Future Perfect 50". [47]
Extreme poverty is the most severe type of poverty, defined by the United Nations (UN) as "a condition characterized by severe deprivation of basic human needs, including food, safe drinking water, sanitation facilities, health, shelter, education and information. It depends not only on income but also on access to services". Historically, other definitions have been proposed within the United Nations.
In economics, the Gini coefficient, also known as the Gini index or Gini ratio, is a measure of statistical dispersion intended to represent the income inequality, the wealth inequality, or the consumption inequality within a nation or a social group. It was developed by Italian statistician and sociologist Corrado Gini.
The United States is a highly developed/advanced market economy. It is the world's largest economy by nominal GDP, and the second-largest by purchasing power parity (PPP) behind China. It has the world's seventh-highest per capita GDP (nominal) and the eighth-highest per capita GDP (PPP) as of 2022. The U.S. accounted for 25.4% of the global economy in 2022 in nominal terms, and around 15.6% in PPP terms. The U.S. dollar is the currency of record most used in international transactions and is the world's reserve currency, backed by a large U.S. treasuries market, its role as the reference standard for the petrodollar system, and its linked eurodollar. Several countries use it as their official currency and in others it is the de facto currency.
Quality of life (QOL) is defined by the World Health Organization as "an individual's perception of their position in life in the context of the culture and value systems in which they live and in relation to their goals, expectations, standards and concerns".
Poverty is a state or condition in which one lacks the financial resources and essentials for a certain standard of living. Poverty can have diverse social, economic, and political causes and effects. When evaluating poverty in statistics or economics there are two main measures: absolute poverty compares income against the amount needed to meet basic personal needs, such as food, clothing, and shelter; relative poverty measures when a person cannot meet a minimum level of living standards, compared to others in the same time and place. The definition of relative poverty varies from one country to another, or from one society to another.
A developing country is a sovereign state with a less developed industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to other countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. There is also no clear agreement on which countries fit this category. The terms low and middle-income country (LMIC) and newly emerging economy (NEE) are often used interchangeably but refers only to the economy of the countries. The World Bank classifies the world's economies into four groups, based on gross national income per capita: high, upper-middle, lower-middle, and low income countries. Least developed countries, landlocked developing countries and small island developing states are all sub-groupings of developing countries. Countries on the other end of the spectrum are usually referred to as high-income countries or developed countries.
The poverty threshold, poverty limit, poverty line, or breadline is the minimum level of income deemed adequate in a particular country. The poverty line is usually calculated by estimating the total cost of one year's worth of necessities for the average adult. The cost of housing, such as the rent for an apartment, usually makes up the largest proportion of this estimate, so economists track the real estate market and other housing cost indicators as a major influence on the poverty line. Individual factors are often used to account for various circumstances, such as whether one is a parent, elderly, a child, married, etc. The poverty threshold may be adjusted annually. In practice, like the definition of poverty, the official or common understanding of the poverty line is significantly higher in developed countries than in developing countries.
Economic inequality is an umbrella term for a) income inequality or distribution of income, b) wealth inequality or distribution of wealth, and c) consumption inequality. Each of these can be measured between two or more nations, within a single nation, or between and within sub-populations.
In economics, income distribution covers how a country's total GDP is distributed amongst its population. Economic theory and economic policy have long seen income and its distribution as a central concern. Unequal distribution of income causes economic inequality which is a concern in almost all countries around the world.
International inequality refers to inequality between countries, as compared to global inequality, which is inequality between people across countries. International inequality research has primarily been concentrated on the rise of international income inequality, but other aspects include educational and health inequality, as well as differences in medical access. Reducing inequality within and among countries is the 10th goal of the UN Sustainable Development Goals and ensuring that no one is left behind is central to achieving them. Inequality can be measured by metrics such as the Gini coefficient.
The social determinants of health (SDOH) are the economic and social conditions that influence individual and group differences in health status. They are the health promoting factors found in one's living and working conditions, rather than individual risk factors that influence the risk for a disease, or vulnerability to disease or injury. The distributions of social determinants are often shaped by public policies that reflect prevailing political ideologies of the area.
Sir Anthony Barnes Atkinson was a British economist, Centennial Professor at the London School of Economics, and senior research fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford.
Richard Gerald Wilkinson is a British social epidemiologist, author, advocate, and left-wing political activist. He is Professor Emeritus of social epidemiology at the University of Nottingham, having retired in 2008. He is also Honorary Professor of Epidemiology and Public Health at University College London and Visiting Professor at University of York. In 2009, Richard co-founded The Equality Trust. Richard was awarded a 2013 Silver Rose Award from Solidar for championing equality and the 2014 Charles Cully Memorial Medal by the Irish Cancer Society.
Branko Milanović is a Serbian-American economist. He is most known for his work on income distribution and inequality.
Income inequality has fluctuated considerably in the United States since measurements began around 1915, moving in an arc between peaks in the 1920s and 2000s, with a 30-year period of relatively lower inequality between 1950 and 1980.
Social inequality occurs when resources in a given society are distributed unevenly, typically through norms of allocation, that engender specific patterns along lines of socially defined categories of persons. It poses and creates a gender gap between individuals that limits the accessibility that women have within society. The differentiation preference of access to social goods in the society is brought about by power, religion, kinship, prestige, race, ethnicity, gender, age, sexual orientation, and class. Social inequality usually implies the lack of equality of outcome, but may alternatively be conceptualized in terms of the lack of equality in access to opportunity. This accompanies the way that inequality is presented throughout social economies and the rights that are skilled within this basis. The social rights include labor market, the source of income, health care, and freedom of speech, education, political representation, and participation.
In the United States, poverty has both social and political implications. In 2020, there were 37.2 million people in poverty. Some of the many causes include income inequality, inflation, unemployment, debt traps and poor education. The majority of adults living in poverty are employed and have at least a high school education. Although the US is a relatively wealthy country by international standards, it has a persistently high poverty rate compared to other developed countries due in part to a less generous welfare system.
Effects of income inequality, researchers have found, include higher rates of health and social problems, and lower rates of social goods, a lower population-wide satisfaction and happiness and even a lower level of economic growth when human capital is neglected for high-end consumption. For the top 21 industrialised countries, counting each person equally, life expectancy is lower in more unequal countries. A similar relationship exists among US states.
Our World in Data (OWID) is a scientific online publication that focuses on large global problems such as poverty, disease, hunger, climate change, war, existential risks, and inequality.
Jason Edward Hickel is an Eswati anthropologist, author, and professor at the Institute for Environmental Science and Technology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. Hickel's research and writing focuses on economic anthropology and development, and is particularly critical of capitalism, neocolonialism, as well as economic growth as a model of human development.
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