Stiglitz to chair IPCC-style inequality panel
More than 1,500 academics and economists from over 100 countries have signed an open letter calling on global leaders to join a proposed International Panel on Inequality ahead of next week’s UN General Assembly in New York.
In the letter, the signatories describe extreme inequality as “a policy choice that can be reversed.” The letter adds: “Extreme concentrations of income and wealth translate into undemocratic concentrations of power, unravelling trust in our societies and polarising our politics.”
The proposed panel would mirror the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, bringing together leading experts, partner governments and multilateral institutions to produce regular reports on the nature and scale of international inequality and to recommend policy responses. The signatories suggest the body could work toward a “shared scientific consensus” on the issue.
Nobel-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz will chair the panel. “It is news to no one that the gap between the richest and the poorest in most countries is large and growing,” Stiglitz said. “The interrelated impacts of the inequality crisis are affecting the lives of many, with significant political, economic, social and environmental consequences playing out across the globe.”
Stiglitz said he hoped the panel could become “the world’s leading authority on the issue.”
Among the letter’s high-profile signatories are former US Treasury secretary Janet Yellen, Nobel prize-winner Daron Acemoglu, and economists Thomas Piketty, Mariana Mazzucato, and Jayati Ghosh. Ghosh, a professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, said: “India’s experience tells us everything we need to know about why an International Panel on Inequality is needed. One of the world’s fastest-growing economies is also one of its most unequal and its extraordinary wealth sits alongside profound deprivation.”
The panel has been set up with the support of Spain, South Africa, Brazil, and Norway and is championed by UN Secretary General António Guterres.
The proposal comes amid a recent warning from the World Bank that “barring a miracle” the 2020s would be a “lost decade” for many developing countries, which — aside from India and China — had failed to narrow the gap with the industrialised world.
Former global leaders including Germany’s Olaf Scholz, Ireland’s Leo Varadkar, and New Zealand’s Helen Clark also backed the idea of the IPI in a separate statement this week.
In the UK, the government has not yet said whether it will join the panel. British foreign secretary Ed Miliband has indicated a willingness to work with other countries on shared international challenges, despite the reluctance of the Trump administration to participate in such initiatives.
British Prime Minister Andy Burnham is expected to attend the UN General Assembly next week, in one of his most significant appearances on the global stage since taking office in July. He is expected to meet Trump on the sidelines of the New York gathering.
Experts behind the initiative say they are concerned about both the gap between wealthy and poor countries and inequalities within individual economies.