Why Are We Worried About Income? Nearly Everything that Matters is Converging

The Center for Global Development presented the seminar "Why Are We Worried About Income? Nearly Everything that Matters is Converging" with Charles Kenny, Senior Economist, World Bank and Discussant Branko Milanovic, Senior Associate, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

SUMMARY: Convergence of national GDP/capita numbers is a common, but narrow, measure of global success or failure in development. This paper takes a broader range of quality of life variables covering health, education, rights and infrastructure and examines if they are converging across countries. It finds that these measures are converging as a rule and (where we have data) that they have been converging for some time. The paper turns to a discussion of what might be driving convergence in quality of life even as incomes diverge, and what this might mean for the donor community.