Tag: Inequality

Services Trade and the Gender Wage Gap: The Case of India

and | 31 May 2021
Trade, Blog | Tags: India, Inequality, Services Trade, Wage Gap
India’s female labour force participation rate is less than half of the global average and the gender wage gap is substantial. With higher tertiary graduation rates and excelling in frontier skills for the future, women constitute a talent pool that India can ill afford to ... continue reading

Governing Finance – The Case for a New Playbook

and | 7 April 2021
Monetary, Blog | Tags: Central Banks, Climate Change, Digital Finance, Employment, Financial Supervision, Governing Finance, Inequality, Sustainability
Finance impacts all aspects of our lives, from our economies to social cohesion to the ecological systems we depend on for our very survival. As a result, the implications of how we govern finance are fundamental, and ultimately existential. Yet, alarmingly, we are not talking ... continue reading

Governing Finance for Sustainable Prosperity

and | 7 April 2021
Monetary, Discussion Notes | Tags: Central Banks, Climate Change, Digital Finance, Employment, Financial Supervision, Governing Finance, Inequality, Sustainability
Finance impacts all aspects of our lives, from our economies to social cohesion to the ecological systems we depend on for our very survival. As a result, the implications of how we choose to govern finance are fundamental, and ultimately existential. Whether we succeed in improving ... continue reading

Assessing Pension-Related Tax Expenditures in South Africa

and | 6 April 2021
Fiscal, Research Papers | Tags: Inequality, Pensions, South Africa, Tax Expenditures
In 2016, the South African government introduced a comprehensive reform to simplify and harmonize the pension system in order to incentivize pension savings and increase the fairness of the retirement system. Using administrative tax micro-data, we assess the impact of the 2016 reform and find that it triggered ... continue reading

“If Something Cannot Go on Forever, It Will Stop“

| 1 April 2021
Fiscal, Monetary, Policy Briefs | Tags: Covid-19, Debt, Democracy, Environment, Financial Stability, Health Systems, Inequality, International Cooperation, Resilience
“If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.” This famous observation was made by Herb Stein, Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. It became famous largely because it was just that, obvious. Yet, what is no less obvious is that public policy is ... continue reading

Central Banks and Inequality – COVID-19 and Beyond

7, 11 and 14 December, 2020 | Online
Monetary, Panel | Tags: Central Banks, Financial Regulation, Inequality
A three-part series on “Central Banking and Inequality—COVID-19 and Beyond.” The three discussions will cover the link between inequality and financial regulation, financial market infrastructure, and monetary policy. ... continue reading

COVID-19 and Inequality: The Urgent Need for Tax Expenditure Reform

and | 24 November 2020
Fiscal, Blog | Tags: Covid-19, Inequality, Tax Expenditures, Tax Reform
The economic impact of COVID-19 is both unprecedented and far-reaching. There is now little doubt that the pandemic will disproportionally hit the worse-off, hence exacerbating inequality. It is also clear that the pandemic is particularly affecting groups and sectors that were already under significant stress ... continue reading

Tackling Inequality Through Tax Expenditure Reform

and | 24 September 2020
Fiscal, Policy Briefs | Tags: G20, Inequality, Tax Expenditures, VAT
Inequality endangers social cohesion and hampers economic growth, and as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic, inequality is set to increase. Hence, the commitment of the Group of Twenty (G20) to address inequality in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is arguably more ... continue reading

Worthy Goals, Flawed Policies – Why Increasing Tax Deductions for Parents Can be Wrong

| 4 September 2020
Fiscal, Blog | Tags: Inequality, Tax Expenditures
Tax expenditures (TEs) – also called tax benefits, tax reliefs, or simply tax subsidies – are used widely to pursue different policy objectives, e.g. boosting innovation and R&D, attracting investment and reducing poverty. Governments worldwide forego significant amounts of revenues through the implementation of these ... continue reading

Tax Expenditures and Inequality

| 16 June 2020
Fiscal, Discussion Notes | Tags: Inequality, Sustainable Development, Tax Expenditures
Tax expenditures are used widely by governments across the world to pursue different public policy goals including boosting innovation and R&D, job creation, greening the economy as well as mitigating inequality and tackling poverty. Yet, besides their stated goals (which are often aligned with a ... continue reading