Publications | Economic Analysis and Policy Division

Displaying 311 - 320 of 1100

05 August 2019

No. 3 - Insufficient attention to inequalities and participatory governance

by Marc Fleurbaey The 2030 Agenda is an impressive wish list which covers all the main issues that need to be tackled in our time. In particular, it adds the crucial sustainability dimension to the poverty eradication goals of the millennium. But it is not sailing smoothly toward success and one can be pessimistic about many goals in the SDG list. For some, this is partly due to inertia. For instance, it takes time to build up school infrastructures and prop up enrollment in secondary education. But there is a deeper flaw in the SDG architecture. To understand the problem, I'd like to refer to the first report of the International Panel on Social Progress (Rethinking Society for the… Download

31 July 2019

World Economic Situation And Prospects: August 2019 Briefing, No. 129

Carbon pricing is a vital policy tool to address the unfolding climate crisis Amid rising global temperatures, drought forces Australia to import wheat for the first time in a decade Debt-for-climate swaps are an innovative?development financing instrument English: PDF (168 kb) Global issues: Climate risks and the case for internalizing the cost of CO2 emission The rationale for carbon pricing: changing decision-making amid an unfolding climate crisis Evidence such as historic temperature data indicates a worrying trend. In numerous countries and geographic areas, the hottest years over the last century have occurred in the last decade. At the global level, the past four years were the… World Economic Situation And Prospects: August 2019 Briefing, No. 129

12 July 2019

Voluntary National Reviews Reports - What do they (not) tell us?, by the CDP subgroup on VNRs (CDP Background Paper No. 49)

Voluntary national reviews (VNRs) are an important innovation as a United Nations process for follow up to the adoption of development agendas. The paper analyses how countries addressed two key cross-cutting issues of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in the VNRs submitted in 2018: leaving no one behind; and pursuing global partnership as means of implementation as well as how they addressed Sustainable Development Goal 4 on quality education. While the VNRs contain already many interesting examples as basis for mutual learning and sharing of, the paper also identifies a need for more attention to these issues and more explicit discussions on strategies for their implementation.… Download

01 July 2019

World Economic Situation And Prospects: July 2019 Briefing, No. 128

ODA flows must increase to support SDG-related investment Regional integration in Africa and Asia is crucial for sustainable development China?s direct investment in Latin America slows English: PDF (168 kb) Global issues ODA flows should increase significantly to achieve the 2030 Agenda To achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the international community must embark on a path of collective efforts, including providing support to many developing countries to increase investment in numerous fields. Both upgrading and diversifying productive capacities and advancing communication, energy and transportation infrastructure remain priorities. Several countries, especially among… World Economic Situation And Prospects: July 2019 Briefing, No. 128

01 June 2019

World Economic Situation And Prospects: June 2019 Briefing, No. 127

Trade tensions and policy uncertainty are damaging global growth prospects Several countries continue to experience setbacks in their fight against poverty Carbon pricing a key element in combating climate change English: PDF (168 kb) Global issues Trade tensions and policy uncertainty continue to damage global growth prospects The World Economic Situation and Prospects (WESP) as of mid-2019, launched on 21 May, stresses that high trade tensions and policy uncertainty continue to damage prospects for economic growth. The report also downgraded growth forecasts for many countries. When the WESP 2019 was launched last January, a softening in global economic activity was already evident. In… World Economic Situation And Prospects: June 2019 Briefing, No. 127

21 May 2019

World Economic Situation and Prospects as of mid-2019

Global growth outlook has weakened, amid unresolved trade tensions and elevated international policy uncertainty, according to the World Economic Situation and Prospects as of mid-2019. Across both developed and developing countries, growth projections for 2019 have been downgraded.?Following an expansion of 3.0 per cent in 2018, world gross product growth is now projected to moderate to 2.7 per cent in 2019 and 2.9 per cent in 2020, reflecting a downward revision from the forecasts released in January. The report identifies several downside risks that could trigger a sharper or more prolonged growth slowdown in the world economy, potentially inflicting significant damage on development… World Economic Situation and Prospects as of mid-2019

20 May 2019

No. 2 - People being pushed behind

by Diane Elson Development is a disruptive process. It changes people's lives, often for the better, though it sometimes bypasses them, leaving them behind. But for too many, the kind of development that prevails today pushes them behind, making them worse off in absolute terms, reducing their standard of living, depriving them of their livelihoods, and in the worst cases, depriving them of their lives. Schumpeter recognised the "creative destruction" of innovation, driving some businesses out of the market and ushering in new, more productive, ones. In Silicon Valley they say, "Move fast and break things". But all too often, if development is driven by the interests of powerful and… Download

15 May 2019

Frontier Technology Quarterly: Playing with genes: The good, the bad and the ugly

Genetic technologies?the ability to manipulate and transform the properties of cells, seeds, microbes, insects, plants, animals and even humans?are pushing the frontiers of science and offers us new hope for disease control and cure. This field has come a long way since Gregor Mendel, the father of genetics, first postulated the rule of heredity in the 1850s. Genetic technologies are changing the way we produce food, improving crop yield and preventing catastrophic losses from droughts, floods and pests. They also are offering new solutions for fighting cancer and many hereditary diseases, improving quality of life and life expectancy. In addition, genetic technologies are increasingly used… Frontier Technology Quarterly: Playing with genes: The good, the bad and the ugly

02 May 2019

No. 1: Inequality and how incomes are generated

What is holding back the implementation of the 2030 Agenda? Insights from the CDP
by Rolph van der Hoeven Experience has shown that it is not possible to empower people and to reduce household income inequality without addressing how incomes are generated in the production process and how this affects the so-called factor income inequality (the distribution of national income between rents from land, capital income and labour income). Household income inequality can be interpreted in three ways (van der Hoeven, 2019): Primary income inequality: the distribution of household incomes consisting of the (sometimes cumulated) different factor incomes in each household, before taxes and… No. 1: Inequality and how incomes are generated

02 May 2019

No. 1 - Inequality and how incomes are generated

In the short series, "What is holding back the implementation of the 2030 Agenda? Insights from the CDP", ahead of the SDG Summit in September 2019, members of the Committee for Development Policy (CDP) reflected on the factors that were holding back the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and what could be done about them. In this piece, Rolph van der Hoeven discusses inequality and how incomes are generated. No. 1 - Inequality and how incomes are generated Download