
Policy Area
Inequality, Human Capital and Well-being
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.
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G20 2022
Towards An International Model Of Portable Migrant Social Protection Scheme -
G20 2022
Teacher-Technology Complementarity For A Resilient Education System -
G20 2022
Tax Expenditures And Female Labour Force Participation -
G20 2022
Refocusing Effort: Double Burden Of Malnutrition Alleviation In COVID-19 Pandemic Era -
G20 2022
Population Ageing And The Second Demographic Dividend: New Policy Challenges In The New Era -
G20 2022
Moving Beyond GDP: A Stock-Flow Approach To Measuring Wellbeing For The G20 -
G20 2022
Migrant Care And Domestic Workers During The Pandemic And Beyond: The G20’s Role In Tackling Inequalities And Guaranteeing Rights -
G20 2022
Ensuring a Comprehensive, Responsive, and Financially Sustainable Social Protection for the Elderly, at-Risk Informal Workers, and People with Disabilities in Indonesia -
G20 2022
Eliminating Child Labour: Essential For Human Development And Ensuring Child Well-Being -
G20 2022
Education Recovery for Stronger Collective Futures -
G20 2022
Education For Survival: Strengthening Multi-Sectoral And Integrated Policy Approaches To Early Childhood Education, Care, And Development As A Global Common Good -
G20 2022
Driving Inclusion And Resilience Through Multi-Channel Government-To-Person Payment: Lessons Learned From Indonesia’s Kartu Prakerja -
G20 2022
Digitalization, Inclusion, And Jobs: Here’s How To Plug Into Digital Value Chains While Creating High-Quality Jobs -
G20 2022
Building From The Foundations: Improving Data To Inform Future-Fit Social Protection -
G20 2022
Building A Global Safety Net Through A Global Citizen Income And Progressive Global Taxation -
G20 2022
Achieving Resilient And Inclusive Social Welfare Systems For Aging Societies Against The Pandemic -
G20 2022
A Closer Look At G20’s Future Of Work In The Digital Era -
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G20 2021
Towards humanistic metrics of success for G20 economies -
G20 2021
Rebuilding education systems for recovery – A crisis-sensitive and equity focused approach -
G20 2021
How do we know goals are achieved? -
G20 2021
Remote working, housing inequality and social mobility -
G20 2021
Financial Inclusion: The importance of financial literacy and the promotion of better labour market outcomes for women and youth -
G20 2021
Beyond Covid-19: what can countries do to address the learning loss caused by the pandemic? -
G20 2021
A wealth taxation on corporations’ stock -
G20 2021
Covid-19 and inequality: an integrated policy response for skills, employment and welfare -
G20 2021
Building global citizenship through a global citizen income and progressive global taxation -
G20 2021
Can trade enhance labour market access and job opportunities for women? The inhibitive roles of entrenched gender inequality -
G20 2020
Governing diagnostics: Covid-19 and the G20 -
G20 2020
Fiscal sustainability and social cohesion in the face of demographic change -
G20 2020
Enabling youth to create jobs instead of searching for jobs: Labor market-friendly incubators -
G20 2020
Properly adressing informality in the arab world: Nature, severity, and possible solutions -
G20 2020
Assessing the wellbeing impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic and three policy types: Suppression, control, and uncontrolled spread -
G20 2020
“Smart” decentralization: Accountability and community development through urban self-governance -
G20 2020
Building global citizenship through global basic income and progressive global taxation -
G20 2020
Upscaling community-based early childhood programmes to counter inequality and foster social cohesion during global uncertainty -
G20 2020
Recoupling economic and social prosperity -
G20 2020
Women in global care chains: The need to tackle intersecting inequalities in G20 countries -
G20 2020
Recoupling Economic and Social Progress -
G20 Japan
Aging, Fiscal Sustainability and Adequacy of Social Security Systems -
G20 Japan
Aging Population and its Impacts on Fiscal Sustainability -
G20 Japan
Financial Literacy, Incentives, and Innovation to Deal with Population Aging -
G20 Japan
Use Evidence-based Medicine to Raise the Productivity of Healthcare in Aging Populations -
G20 Japan
Work Capacity and Socially Sustainable Public Pension System in Aging Societies -
G20 Japan
Role of Innovative Policies in Incentivizing Women’s Participation in the Formal Workforce: A Response to Trends in Aging Population -
G20 Japan
Taxation in Aging Societies: Increasing the Effectiveness and Fairness of Pension Systems -
G20 Japan
Fostering Prosperity – Investment and Demographic Transition -
G20 Japan
Macroeconomic Impacts and Policies in Aging Societies -
G20 Japan
The Urban-Rural Divide and Regionally Inclusive Growth in the Digital Age -
G20 Japan
Bringing the Public’s Voice into Debates about the Future of Politics
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Global Solutions Journal G20/T20 Italy 2021 Edition
The Global Solutions Journal G20/T20 Italy 2021 Edition focuses on Italy’s G20 priorities, overcoming the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, Digital Governance and New Measurement.
Authors from various sectors – politics, research, academia, business, and civil society – have contributed to this multifaceted edition.
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S20 Saudi Arabia Communique
S20 Saudi Arabia 2020: Read the Communique here.
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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
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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.
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Transparency, communication and trust : The role of public communication in responding to the wave of disinformation about the new Coronavirus
The global spread of Coronavirus (COVID-19) has been accompanied by a wave of disinformation that is undermining policy responses and amplifying distrust and concern among citizens. Around the world, governments are leveraging public communication to counteract disinformation and support policy. The efficacy of these actions will depend on grounding them in open government principles, chiefly transparency, to build trust in public institutions. This policy brief provides an overview of this new wave of disinformation and notes some emerging examples of OECD member countries’ responses to it through public communication initiatives specifically. It also offers preliminary guidelines on engaging with citizens during the crisis to help address this challenge.
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Mitigating the work-security trade-off while rebooting the economy
In getting people back to work before a vaccine is developed, policymakers will have to balance medical risks and economic risks. This column presents some calculations on the number of jobs that can be carried out without putting workers at risk of being infected by COVID-19. The findings suggest that the share of jobs that can be performed without putting workers’ health at risk is limited, and probably does not reach 50%. Importantly, this share is even lower in strategic industries that supply the health sector.
Mitigating the work-security trade-off while rebooting the economy
By Tito Boeri (INPS), Alessandro Caiumi (Bocconi University) and Marco Paccagnella (OECD)
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The Military, Policing, and COVID-19
Already today, the U.S. armed forces are providing important help here at home in the struggle against the novel coronavirus. Well over 10,000 members of the Army National Guard and Air Force National Guard have been mobilized to help with things like setting up more hospital capacity, transporting supplies, and providing other logistics. Other personnel, some retired, who have “Individual Ready Reserve” status are in some cases being activated when their particular skills in medicine or other crucial fields can help. They are typically doing so under what is called Title 32 of the U.S. code, whereby they are paid by the federal government but controlled by the governors of the individual states where they operate.
The Military, Policing, and COVID-19
By John R. Allen, John Donohue, Colonel Rick Fuentes, Paul Goldenberg, and Michael E. O’Hanlon (Brookings)
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COVID-19: The Price of Negligence
With the triumph of the ideology of “liberal globalization” and the rise of digital technology, the complexity of international relations burgeoned at the same time that borders became semi-porous walls. The strongest states, starting with the United States, and global companies that consider themselves to be above states, were the first beneficiaries, at least for a while. The characteristic of a complex system is that it is impossible to explain it completely, let alone control it. Complexity leads to radical uncertainty. In 2008 the spectre of another Great Depression loomed even though many Nobel Prize winners in economics considered their science to be advanced enough to preclude any return to such a scourge. Even as the damage of the financial crisis lingers, the COVID-19 pandemic reopens the prospect of a lasting economic catastrophe. Central bankers no longer put a limit on the amount of money but have no idea what their actions’ second or third consequences will be. As Laurence Boone, the OECD’s chief economist puts it, common sense suggests “we must do everything we can to ensure that the machine does not break down, but idles, so that it can start up again as quickly as possible.” If we let it break down, however many trillions of dollars are poured into it, that will be a different story.
COVID-19: The Price of Negligence
By Thierry de Montbrial (IFRI)
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The COVID-19 Pandemic: Government vs. Community Action Across the United States
Using data from 40 million mobile devices across the US, this paper analyses how state and county governments’ non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI) aimed at restricting social contact interact with individuals’ physical distancing behavior in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. We use difference-in-differences and instrumental-variable approaches to find that such NPIs lead to a significant uptake in physical distancing. Our estimates show that shelter-in-place policies can increase time spent at home by as much as 39%. Nevertheless, individuals engage in limited physical distancing even in the absence of NPIs, once the virus takes hold in their area. Moreover, we show that governments are more likely to implement lock-down policies if they face a population that does not take physical distancing measures on its own. Our analysis suggests that non-causal econometric approaches studying how the uptake in physical distancing responds to lock-down policies will yield biased results. Exploiting county-level data, we document significant socio-economic heterogeneity in individuals’ responses to the spread of COVID-19 and to lock-downs, and show how state- and county-level policies interact.
The COVID-19 Pandemic: Government vs. Community Action Across the United States
By Adam Brzezinski, Guido Deiana, Valentin Kecht and David Van Dijcke (University of Oxford – The Institute for New Economic Thinking)
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Germany needs to lead push for European solidarity in crisis
Hertie School President Henrik Enderlein argues that Europe needs a strong signal of European solidarity in the face of the coronavirus pandemic, but Germany in particular fails to recognise the historic proportions of this undertaking. It has reduced itself to the role of the model student who cannot help but lecture others along the way.
Germany needs to lead push for European solidarity in crisis
By Hendrik Enderlein (Hertie School)