Gabriel Palma (José Gabriel Palma) is a noted Chilean development economist. He is an emeritus professor at University of Cambridge and a part-time professor at University of Santiago, Chile. He is most noted for his work on dependency theory, the political economy of development in Latin America and income distribution.[1][2] He is also known for the Palma ratio which is defined as the ratio of the richest 10% of the population's share of gross national income divided by the poorest 40%'s share. This is based on Palma's finding that middle class incomes almost always represent about half of gross national income while the other half is split between the richest 10% and poorest 40%, but that the share of those two groups varies considerably across countries.[3][4][5][6]
Palma gave the 2020 Amartya Sen Lecture, for the Human Development and Capability Association (HDCA) Conference on What Went Wrong With European Social Democracy: On Building a Debilitating Capitalism, Where Even the Welfare State Subsidises Greater Market Inequality. [7]