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Tim Harford explains the numbers and statistics in the news and in life

Tim Harford explains the numbers and statistics in the news and in life.

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More or Less: Is Oxfam right about the world’s richest and poorest people?

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Is Oxfam right about the world’s richest and poorest people?

27/01/2024 GMT

BBC World Service - More or Less, Is Oxfam right about the world’s richest and poorest people?

We investigate how Oxfam use wealth stats to illustrate global inequality

We investigate how Oxfam use wealth stats to illustrate the inequality between the world’s richest five people and poorest 5 billion.

We investigate Oxfam’s claim that “since 2020, the five richest men in the world have seen their fortunes more than double, while almost five billion people have seen their wealth fall”.  

With the help of Johan Norberg, Historian and Author of ideas and Felix Salmon, Financial Correspondent at Axios, we explore the figures behind the wealth of the richest and uncover what it really tells us about the world’s financial markets.  

And Charles Kenny, senior fellow at the Centre for Global Development in Washington DC, helps us unpick why, when looking at the world’s poorest people, measurements of wealth don’t always tell us what we really need to know.  

Presenter: Tim Harford
Producer: Debbie Richford 
Production Co-ordinator: Brenda Brown
Series Producer: Tom Colls
Sound Mix: Hal Haines
Editor: Richard Vadon

(image: Elon Musk at the Viva Tech fair in Paris June 2023. Credit: Nathan Laine/Getty Images)

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