After more than 300 immigrants died less than a mile from the Italian coast, Max Fisher interviewed World Bank economist Branko Milanovic, author of The Haves and the Have-Nots:
[M]y book spends quite a lot of time discussing the income gaps between the countries. And of course these income gaps, historically, have risen tremendously, despite the fact that in the last 15 or 20 years, China and India have grown at very high rates. Still, the number of countries in Africa where income today is lower than in the 1960s [when they won independence] is large, I think about 15 countries.
So, clearly, the gap between Africa and Europe has increased. Even the gap between the United States and Mexico, for example in [gross domestic product at purchasing power parity], which is adjusted for price levels in each country, that gap has gone up. So the implication of that is that if the gap is significant, large, and in some cases rising, and the knowledge about the existence of such differences is more widespread, and the cost of transportation is less, then you will have huge pressure to migrate.
