Jose Angel Gurria Quotes

In the first phase of economic development you have rising inequality.

The benefits of growth have not trickled down. Income inequalities have become one of the biggest global challenges, attracting growing attention not only in academic literature but also among policymakers globally.

Poverty is not inevitable. It is a human ill that we can fight if we decide to do so together.

The association of poverty with progress is the enigma of our times.

Worrying about the poor is one thing. To contend that equality is necessary for growth is an altogether different and more radical idea.

Federal policies must understand the linkages between economic growth, social mobility, and a strong middle class.

There are many countries in the world that when they reached the middle-income stage, they witnessed serious structural problems such as growth stagnation, a widening wealth gap and increasing social unrest.

We will be returning to historical levels of inequality. We'll view post-war America as a kind of strange interlude not to be repeated. It won't be the dreams that we all had that virtually all incomes go up in lockstep at three percent a year. It hurts to give that up.

The only way to have a better world and end poverty is by closing the gap between the top and the bottom.

If you have extremes of haves and have-nots where the gap keeps growing, the have-nots group together and create social disorder, as they can't see a way out of their situation.

Income inequality is troubling because, among other things, it means that many people in our society don't have the opportunities to advance themselves.

Without better economic opportunity, you can't have better public security and vice versa.

Economic growth is the key. Economic growth is the key to everything. But once you have economic growth, it is important that we reach out to people who live in the shadows, the people who don't seem to ever think that they get a fair deal.

If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.

When inequality gets too extreme, then it becomes useless for growth, and it can even become bad because it tends to lead to high perpetuation of inequality over time and low mobility.

There are more and more products with fewer people able to consume them. We have to help those who don't have the economic stability to grow, or one day there will be very few who are able to buy what we're selling.

The problem, gentlemen, is that Obama is right: The promise of upward mobility is dying in America, and no amount of political demagoguery will fix it.

You need some inequality to grow... but extreme inequality is not only useless but can be harmful to growth because it reduces mobility and can lead to political capture of our democratic institutions.

In middle-income countries, inequality becomes a problem because you can see there is a layer of people who are doing well, while the poor are still stuck there.

I don't mind the rich getting richer, but the poor shouldn't be getting poorer, and there should be more people moving into the middle class.

Does inequality in the distribution of income increase or decrease in the course of a country's economic growth?

If you go back to 1800, everybody was poor. I mean everybody. The Industrial Revolution kicked in, and a lot of countries benefited, but by no means everyone.

I should say many things. Mexico has been one of the losers of the 20th century. We tried many different alternatives to development and unfortunately we have 40 percent of the population poor; we have a per capita income that is extremely low.

To deal with radicalism and extremism, we need to deal with economic inequality. This is what I learned from my experience in Solo and then in Jakarta.

I like globalization; I want to say it works, but it is hard to say that when six hundred million people are slipping backwards.