Nobel prize winning economist Angus Deaton says billionaire Donald Trump''s US presidency campaign and Britain''s shock vote to quit the EU are symptoms of a botched drive to integrate globally. In an interview with AFP, the British-US poverty expert warned that the Republican candidate in November''s US elections was "not a good voice" for those neglected by the global movement towards economic and financial integration. Nor, added the Princeton University professor, is a so-called Brexit likely to benefit its supporters.
Inequalities have grown since the 1970s and become more marked with a globalisation drive that hits certain parts of the population, mainly in rich countries, Deaton told AFP, on the publication in French of his 2013 book "The Great Escape". "If we don''t deal with that, if we don''t somehow make globalisation benefit those people too or we share the prosperity that comes through globalisation, then I think that we are in considerable danger," cautioned the 71-year-old Nobel laureate.
And populist politicians such as Trump in the United States, or Britons'' unexpected decision in June to slam the door on 40 years of European Union membership are "part of the result of not handling globalisation well", he said. "Trump is not a good voice for those people. "I don''t think Brexit is going to help people in Britain," he added, saying however that globalisation was not solely to blame.
"A lot of people in America and Europe feel that their governments are not representing them very much,"Deaton said. The academic, who has spent more than 30 years in the United States, won the Nobel Economics Prize last year for his groundbreaking work on poverty.
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