vital interface between global policies in the economic, social and environmental spheres and national action. The Department works in three main interlinked areas: (i) it compiles, generates and analyses a wide range of economic, social and environmental data and information on which Member States

meeting the insurance needs of the poor

Donors have developed new micro-level and local paradigms to address rural development, environmental sustainability, and poverty alleviation to bypass, ignore, and substitute for badly functioning and corrupt states. Yet, states still set the macro-economic, legal, and policy parameters or “rules of the game ” within which other entities operate, and many non-state actors are only nominally independent. Hence, technical initiatives stemming from these paradigms, aimed at growth and equity are often theoretically misconceived and tend to fail when implemented. The paper critically discusses the new paradigms, including decentralization, civil society, microentrepreneurship, and capacity building, among others, mainly using African examples.

in the international dialogue on debt From November 2001 to April 2003, the International Monetary Fund grappled with a radical proposal, the Sovereign Debt Restructuring Mechanism, for handling the external debt of insolvent governments of developing and transition economies. That proposal was rejected, but new “collective action clauses ” that address some of the difficulties in restructuring bond debt are being introduced. In addition, IMF is developing a pragmatic and eclectic approach to assessing debt sustainability that can be useful to governments and creditors. However, many of the problems in restructuring sovereign debt remain and this paper suggests both specific reforms and modalities for considering them.

July 2010This IZA Research Report is based on a study conducted for the European Parliament under contract IP/A/EMPL/FWC/2008-002/C1/SC2. Copyright remains with the European Parliament. Link to the original study:

Should global goal setting continue, and how, in the post-2015 era?

The relationship between rainfall and human density and its implications for future water stress in sub-Saharan Africa

on Intellectual Property as adopted in 1952 (Berne) and as revised in 1972 (Paris). The copyright has since been extended by the World Intellectual Property Organization (Geneva) to include electronic and virtual intellectual property. Permission to use whole or parts of texts contained in IAEA publications in printed or electronic form must be obtained and is usually subject to royalty agreements. Proposals for non-commercial reproductions and translations are welcomed and will be considered on a case-by-case basis. Enquiries should be addressed by e-mail to the Publishing Section, IAEA, at sales.publications@iaea.org or by post to:

The role of production technology for productivity spillovers from multinationals: Firm-level evidence for Hungary

The share of the richest 1 % in total pre-tax income has increased in most OECD countries in the past three decades, particularly in some English-speaking countries but also in some Nordic (from low levels) and Southern European countries. Today, they range between 7 % in Denmark and the Netherlands up to almost 20 % in the United States. This increase is the result of the top 1 % capturing a disproportionate share of overall income growth over the past three decades: up to 37 % in Canada and even 47 % in the United States. This explains why the majority of the population cannot reconcile the aggregate income growth figures with the performance of their incomes. At the same time, tax reforms in almost all OECD countries reduced top personal income tax rates as well as rates of other taxes affecting the highest income earners. The crisis did put a temporary halt to these trends – but it did not undo the previous surge in top incomes. In some countries, top incomes had already largely recovered in 2010. To respond to these trends, governments have several options at hand to increase effective taxation paid by top income recipients without necessarily raising their marginal rates, to improve tax compliance and to reduce tax avoidance. Inequality and policies to restore equal opportunities have moved to the forefront of the political debate in many countries. Topping the bestseller lists is Thomas