I think one big improvement would be if we somehow made it cheaper and easier for developing countries to learn from the sad experience of some of the developed countries, and also from some of the positive experiences we have of building good transportation systems, like high-speed rail.
Thomas PoggePurchasing power parities are not a reasonable method for comparing households across countries or currencies. The reason for this is simply that PPPs are sensitive to the prices of all the commodities, goods and services, that households are consuming worldwide, with each commodity weighted in the calculations according to its share in international household consumption expenditure.
Thomas PoggeThere is at the global level a very small number of actors who can meaningfully weigh in on global institutional design, who are able - through powerful governments and most effectively through the government of the United States - to exert substantial influence on international negotiations, which are routinely conducted behind closed doors.
Thomas PoggeIncome inequality matters more on a day-to-day basis. Wealth matters more for political influence.
Thomas PoggeWe should not think of poverty eradication as a matter of collecting money and giving it to the poor so much as of reforming the global rules that are disadvantaging the poor and making it impossible for them to fend for themselves.
Thomas PoggeWe should condemn as unjust a global economic order that leads to ever-increasing economic disparities - provided this effect is foreseeable and provided it is also avoidable through some alternative institutional design that would foreseeably lead to much less poverty and inequality. Those involved in designing or imposing the existing rules are collectively responsible for the resulting excess deprivations and human rights deficits.
Thomas Pogge