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Using social tables, we make an estimate of global inequality
(inequality among world citizens) in early 19th century. We then show that
the level and composition of global inequality have changed over the last
two centuries. The level has increased reaching a high plateau around
1950s, and the main determinants of global inequality have become
differences in mean country incomes rather than inequalities within
nations. The inequality extraction ratio (the percentage of total
inequality that was extracted by global elites) has remained surprisingly
stable, at around 70% of the maximum global Gini, during the last 100years.
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