Social Cohesion and the State

Policy Area
Social Cohesion and the State

POLICY BRIEFS

Policy Briefs contain recommendations or visions and cover policy areas that are of interest to G20 policymakers. The majority of the Policy Briefs has been developed by a corresponding Think20 Task Force.


T20 Recommendations Reports tie related policy proposals made under different G20 Presidencies into a common policy advice framework. They aim to leverage connections between T20 research organizations as well as other stakeholders to address well-defined global problems, in order to support G20 policymakers and to aid business and civil society organizations in complementing G20 policy efforts.

  • The fierce urgency of now: Toward a new multilateralism

    The fierce urgency of now: Kevin P. Gallagher and Richard Kozul-Wright describe the urgent need for a new multilateralism to tackle polarizing inequality, financial instability, and a breakdown of the climate system.

    Toward a new multilateralism, by Kevin P. Gallagher and Richard Kozul-Wright

  • A policy formula for well-being

    Today, the world faces a climate crisis, a natural resource crisis and a crisis of social fragmentation, in addition to various economic threats. Under these circumstances, the exclusive focus on economic goals is indefensible.The President of the Global Solutions Initiative, Dennis Snower, emphasizes the responsibility of the G20 in refocusing policy at all levels in alignment with human well-being as the ultimate goal.

    A policy formula for well-being; by Dennis Snower

  • World Social Science Report 2016: Inequalities and social progress in the future

    World inequalities have evolved in a complex way over the past few decades. The economic emergence of several developing countries with large populations has lowered global inequality, while the widening of inequalities within countries has served to increase it. The baseline scenario would see the world go back to a nineteenth-century pattern of large social inequalities. Less unequal scenarios could involve political intervention to reduce inequalities domestically, or quicker convergence between countries. In all scenarios, the convergence of living standards will raise serious environmental challenges.

    Inequalities and social progress in the future; by Marc Fleurbaey and Stephan Klasen

  • World Social Science Report 2016: The decline and recent uptick of income inequality in Latin America

    This contribution to the World Socal Science Report 2016 discusses the exogenous and policy factors behind the large decline in income inequality recorded in Latin America in the 2000s. In particular, it relates the adoption of progressive policies to the election of left-of-centre regimes in most of the region. Finally, it discusses whether such a policy model is sustainable in a world affected by sluggish growth, falling terms of trade, some domestic policy mistakes, and a possible vanishing of middle-class support for the policy model of the 2000s.

    The decline and recent uptick of income inequality in Latin America, 2002–13; by Giovanni Andrea Cornia

  • The Fading American Dream: Trends in Absolute Income Mobility since 1940

    In  this paper, the authors combine historical data in order to estimate rates of “absolute income mobility” – the fraction of children who earn more than their parents.  The results show that rates of absolute mobility have fallen sharply over the past half century; and that most of the decline in absolute mobility is driven by the more unequal distribution of economic growth in recent decades rather than the slowdown in GDP growth rates.

    The Fading American Dream: Trends in Absolute Income Mobility since 1940, by Raj Chetty, David Grusky, Maximilian Hell, Nathaniel Hendren, Robert Manduca and Jimmy Narang

  • Polarization of the British Class System

    Mike Savage discusses the results of the largest British class survey ever conducted. It shows that class divisions remain very powerful and are becoming more entrenched. There is a growing gulf between the elite and the lower classes, and what used to be termed the middle and working classes seem to be splintering into social classes with systematically differing amounts of cultural and social capital.

    The British class system is becoming more polarised between a prosperous elite and a poor ‘precariat’; by Mike Savage

  • Why Is Caring About Poverty and Not About Inequality Implausible?

    Branko Milanovic’s article is motivated by recent arguments made by Martin Feldstein in which the relevance of inequality is dismissed (if everybody’s income goes up, who cares if inequality is up too?), and the argument is made that only poverty alleviation should matter. This note shows that we all do care about inequality, and to hold that we should be concerned with poverty solely and not with inequality is internally inconsistent.

    Why We All Care About Inequality (But Are Loath to Admit It), by Branko Milanovic

  • Nostalgia and the Abandonment of Progress

    In this piece, Jean Pisani-Ferry discusses, what he calls, the abandonment of progress: many Western citizens have lost faith in progress: they no longer believe that the future will bring material improvement and that their children will have a better life than their own. They look backward because they are afraid to look ahead. A sentiment that is instrumentalized by current political leader across the globe.

    The Abandonment of Progress, by Jean Pisani-Ferry

     

  • The New Xenophobia

    Democratic governments in the West are increasingly losing their bearings. From the shift toward illiberalism in Poland and Hungary to the Brexit vote in the UK and Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election, a particularly toxic strain of populism is spreading through societies around the globe.

    The New Xenophobia; by Ngaire Woods

     

  • Poorer than their parents? A new perspective on income inequality

    The debate over rising inequality in advanced economies has focused on income and wealth gains going disproportionately to top earners. In this publication, researchers from the McKinsey Global Institute look at an aspect that has received less attention: households in developed economies whose incomes have not advanced when compared to their peers in the past.

    Poorer than their parents? Flat or falling incomes in advanced economies

     

  • The Brexit Mentality Goes Global

    The British vote to leave the European Union was the first major political victory of an anti-globalization backlash in an advanced industrial country. But the process is not best understood simply as popular revolt, but rather as elite failure, argues Harold James in his article on the so-called Brexit Mentality that is spreading.

    The Brexit Mentality Goes Global; by Harold James