Almost a decade ago, the globalisation elephant entered the room. At a time when advanced western economies were still suffering from the 2008 financial crisis, a 2013 World Bank working paper contained a chart that appeared to explain everything.

The chart, produced by researchers Christoph Lakner and Branko Milanovic, resembled an elephant. It showed growth in living standards at different parts of the global income distribution in the 20-year period of peak globalisation ending in 2008. That encompassed the fall of the Soviet Union and China’s accession to the World Trade Organization.

The most common way to interpret the chart was to view the tail of the elephant as representing the global poor — mostly in sub-Saharan Africa, which enjoyed precious little benefit from trade integration. Higher up the income distribution, the main body of the beast showed huge growth in real incomes at over 5 per cent a year largely going to Chinese households and the new Asian middle classes.