Max Roser seems upset that British inequality rose since the 1980s for the top 1%. Other measures of inequality did not rise such as for disposable income.
https://twitter.com/MaxCRoser/status/657509056052133888
At the same time as top income shares grew at a pace, as shown in the chart below, the British economy boomed under the Thatchernomics, and if the British Left is to believed, under Thatchernomics by another name under Tony Blair. I’m not suggesting much in the way of linkages but the British Left gets excited about the relationship between top income shares and British economic prosperity. Britain grew at well above the trend rate of growth for the USA in the 20th‘s century for most of the period of Thatchernomics despite rising top 1% income shares or maybe course of that. Let’s not get carried away about linkages.
Source: Computed from OECD Stat Extract and The Conference Board. 2015. The Conference Board Total Economy Database™, May 2015, http://www.conference-board.org/data/economydatabase/ and Anthony B Atkinson and Salvatore Morelli CHARTBOOK OF ECONOMIC INEQUALITY.
In the chart above, British economic growth since 1970 is detrended by the growth rate of the USA for the 20th century. The USA is taken to be the global technological frontier. A flat-line in the chart above is British growth at the same rate the USA which is 1.9%; a rising line is growth in that year faster than trend; and a falling line is growth below the trend rate growth.
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
1 Comment (+add yours?)