Given the escalating scale of inequality in the world, shouldn’t countries be banding together to set up an international panel on the issue, along the same lines as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nations body set up to assess the science related to climate change? The idea of setting up an international panel on inequality has been recommended by the G20 Extraordinary Committee of Independent Experts on Global Inequality.
The thinking behind the panel is set out in a report delivered to the G20 by the experts on the inequality committee. They argue that the proposed inequality panel would “support governments and multilateral agencies with authoritative assessments and analyses of inequality”. It wouldn’t make any recommendations for countries. Rather it would offer a menu of policies that could be used to address inequality. Panel leader and Nobel laureaute Joseph E. Stiglitz explains what’s behind the idea.
