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1/OK, data mystery time.

This New York Times feature shows China with a Gini Index of less than 30, which would make it more equal than Canada, France, or the Netherlands. https://t.co/g3Sv6DZTDE

That's weird. Income inequality in China is legendary.

Let's check this number.

 2/The New York Times cites the World Bank's recent report, "Fair Progress? Economic Mobility across Generations Around the World".

The report is available here: https://t.co/mrvWz1IzIe
3/The World Bank report has a graph in which it appears to show the same value for China's Gini - under 0.3.

The graph cites the World Development Indicators as its source for the income inequality data.
4/The World Development Indicators are available at the World Bank's website.

Here's the Gini index: https://t.co/MvylQzpX6A

It looks as if the latest estimate for China's Gini is 42.2.

That estimate is from 2012.
5/A Gini of 42.2 would put China in the same neighborhood as the U.S., whose Gini was estimated at 41 in 2013.

I can't find the <30 number anywhere. The only other estimate in the tables for China is from 2008, when it was estimated at 42.8.
6/FRED, which gets its Gini estimates from the World Bank, shows the same numbers: https://t.co/1y911qazo9

Everyone except the "Fair Progress?" report, and the New York Times feature, seems to agree that the World Bank's most recent estimate of China's Gini is 42.2.
7/It appears that China's own estimate of its Gini was 46.5 in 2016: https://t.co/dG58kH3LiS
8/So where the heck is the "Fair Progress?" report getting its super-low China Gini number? It seems like it's NOT from the World Bank's World Development Indicators, which is what the report cites.
9/I notice that in the "Fair Progress?" report cited by the NYT, the U.S. Gini is also a bit fishy. It's less than 40, when the World Development Indicators say it's a bit over 40.
10/The only other source the "Fair Progress?" report cites is the World Bank's Global Database on Intergenerational Mobility: https://t.co/95RnPYxMsB

But the GDIM doesn't have income GINIs. So that can't be where these weird numbers were from (unless the data was mislabeled).
11/Anyway I've been searching high and low for where the "Fair Progress?" report and the NYT got these weird Gini numbers, and I just can't find it. If anyone else can help me find where this comes from, I'd appreciate it.
12/As of right now, it's looking like the New York Times used some bad data for an incredibly widely read report, thus convincing a ton of people (incorrectly) that China is a far more economically equal place than the United States.

https://t.co/vmzz57YeFf
13/But if someone finds a reliable source for these Gini numbers, then please let me know!

(end...for now)
14/UPDATE: The mystery has been solved! https://t.co/Qw9aB7Qg9D

The Gini number the NYT used was from the 1980s. It was not labeled as such.
15/The people who wrote the New York Times story appeared not to realize this. Here's the caption and graph from their piece:
16/The NYT seems to have just made a mistake, and should change the text and the graph to reflect that these numbers are from the 1980s, not current.

(end)

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@Noahpinion
Today's @bopinion post is a review of the excellent new book "The Gift of Global Talent: How Migration Shapes Business, Economy & Society", by

This is an excellent, short, highly readable, very important book. Every business executive and politician should have a copy.

Why are skilled immigrants so good, and so important?

Because they're the backbone of high-value industries where the U.S. has a dominant position.


If we don't bring skilled immigrants to the United States, high-value industries will migrate to other countries, and America will lose industrial dominance and be a poorer country.


Contrary to popular belief, skilled immigrants - including H-1b workers - RAISE wages for native-born skilled workers.

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Because downward wage pressure from competition is more than canceled out by the upward wage pressure from CLUSTERING.
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Today's @bopinion post is about how poor countries started catching up to rich ones.

It looks like decolonization just took a few decades to start

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https://t.co/JjjVtWzz5c

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Why??

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Global inequality began to fall.
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Noah Smith
@Noahpinion
1/I'm thinking about the end of Apu in the context of the national debates on immigration and diversity.


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And here are cool interactive maps to go along with the

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Noahtogolpe \U0001f407
Noahtogolpe 🐇
@Noahpinion
1/OK, so. Let's talk about Left-NIMBYism.

We all know about Right-NIMBYs, rabidly protecting their white-flight suburbs from Those People. And there are plenty of liberal NIMBYs too.

But NIMBYs of the Left are also a force to be reckoned

2/Left-NIMBYs have developed a canon of interlocking, mutually reinforcing beliefs about housing and urbanism.

These beliefs are mostly false, but they form a powerful "canon" that quickly ossifies into a hardened worldview.

It looks something like this:


3/Fortunately, Nathan J. Robinson of Current Affairs has written an article that perfectly encapsulates the Left-NIMBY worldview (and quotes me in it!).

So this is a teachable

4/Robinson selectively quotes a Bloomberg article of mine (https://t.co/iamRrW6oei).

Look at the part he quoted, vs. what I actually wrote!

Pretty different, eh? 😉


5/In fact, as I wrote in the article that Robinson failed to read more than one line of, it's theoretically possible that Left-NIMBYs COULD be right that allowing market-rate housing drives up local rents.

I take that possibility very seriously, as do YIMBYs.
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The original complaint against me was typical of the sort of thing directed at many female professional academics (and some male too). The strategies employed by my complainants are commonly used.

One of these is to perform vulnerability while behaving aggressively. Performing vulnerability is essential in order to trigger the university's awareness of its duties under the Equality Act, and establish an oppressor/victim dynamic to the case from the outset.

My complainants did this effectively. The complaint was initiated by a fellow PhD student, who joined forces with the SU. A student from the SU wrote the actual complaint. This is how it begins:


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History Under Your Fee...
@HUFToday
Today is also death anniversary of P.V.Narasimha Rao, the man who liberalized the Indian economy, and opened it up. And more than anything else, provided the much needed stability for India in the turbulent 90s. One of the best PMs IMO. #PVNarasimhaRao


The man who dismantled India's Licence Raj, opened up relations with Israel, adopted a Look East Policy. P.V.Narasimha Rao took over as PM, when India was faced with multiple challenges both on political and economic front in 1991.

Assasination of Rajiv Gandhi, Economic crisis, India was facing a bleak scenario, in 1991 when PVNR became the PM. It is to PVNR's credit that when he stepped down as PM in 1996,more people in India were optimistic about their future, more confident. #PVNarasimhaRao

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I've seen many news articles cite that "the UK variant could be the dominant strain by March". This is emphasized by @CDCDirector.

While this will likely to be the case, this should not be an automatic cause for concern. Cases could still remain contained.

Here's how: 🧵

One of @CDCgov's own models has tracked the true decline in cases quite accurately thus far.

Their projection shows that the B.1.1.7 variant will become the dominant variant in March. But interestingly... there's no fourth wave. Cases simply level out:

https://t.co/tDce0MwO61


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Two things can be true at once:
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I have kept quiet about Matthew's recent outpourings on here but as my estwhile co-author has now seen fit to portray me as an enabler of oppression I think I have a right to reply. So I will.

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