The open access publication of this book has been published with the support of the Swiss National Science Foundation. Are countries capable of reducing economic inequality under conditions of contemporary globalisation without cooperating and coordinating with other countries? While states are far from powerless to effect distributional change within their own sovereign space, Taking a Common Concern Approach to Economic Inequality makes the case that cooperation and coordination is indeed necessary, especially in relation to corporate taxation. It accordingly contemplates the utility of a transnational taxation system that is embedded in cooperative sovereignty through the recognition of rising economic inequality and its deleterious effects – including how increasingly unequal distributions within countries make transnational cooperation and coordination efforts less likely – as a common concern of humankind.

In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.

This paper analyzes the extent of income inequality from a global perspective, its drivers, and what to do about it. The drivers of inequality vary widely amongst countries, with some common drivers being the skill premium associated with technical change and globalization, weakening protection for labor, and lack of financial inclusion in developing countries. We find that increasing the income share of the poor and the middle class actually increases growth while a rising income share of the top 20 percent results in lower growth—that is, when the rich get richer, benefits do not trickle down. This suggests that policies need to be country specific but should focus on raising the income share of the poor, and ensuring there is no hollowing out of the middle class. To tackle inequality, financial inclusion is imperative in emerging and developing countries while in advanced economies, policies should focus on raising human capital and skills and making tax systems more progressive.

The gap between the rich and poor is widening across the globe. This book explores whether this major societal challenge of our time can be addressed by the means of competition law. The primary goal of today's competition law is to ensure that market power does not lead to an inefficient production of goods and services. Nevertheless, even such efficiency-oriented curbing of market power may arguably contribute to the reduction of differences in how much people own and earn. Furthermore, many competition law regimes do take into account distributive considerations too. The chapters investigate the relationship between competition law and economic (in)equality from philosophical, historical, and economic perspectives. Their inquiries concern the conceptual foundations of competition law and doctrinal frameworks of individual jurisdictions, as well as specific problems and markets. As such, the book provides a novel and comprehensive overview of whether and how competition law can contribute to more equality in both developed and developing countries. The book is a must-read for researchers, public officials, judges, and practitioners within the competition law community. It will also appeal to anyone more broadly interested in issues of inequality and economic policy.

The open access publication of this book has been published with the support of the Swiss National Science Foundation. Climate change is forcing us to consider the right of people to leave their disappearing homelands, and the shape this right should take. Climate Change, Disasters and People on the Move proposes international protection as a solution with three pillars: granting protection against return to the country of origin (non-refoulement); preventing future displacement; and facilitating safe, orderly, and regular migration in the context of disasters and climate change. Dr. Aylin Yildiz Noorda uses the theories of common concern of humankind and community interests to operationalise her proposal, providing a blueprint for future claims.

The Common Concern of Humankind today is central to efforts to bring about enhanced international cooperation in fields including, but not limited to, climate change. This book explores the expression's potential as a future legal principle. It sets out the origins of Common Concern, its differences to other common interest legal principles, and expounds the potential normative structure and effects of the principle, applying an approach of carrots and sticks in realizing goals defined as a Common Concern. Individual chapters test the principle in different legal fields, including climate technology diffusion, marine plastic pollution, human rights enforcement, economic inequality, migration, and monetary and financial stability. They confirm that basic obligations under the principle of 'Common Concern of Humankind' comprise not only that of international cooperation and duties to negotiate, but also of unilateral duties to act to enhance the potential of public international law to produce appropriate public goods.

Winner of the Bruno Kreisky Prize, Karl Renner Institut A Financial Times Best Economics Book of the Year An Economist Best Book of the Year A Livemint Best Book of the Year One of the world’s leading economists of inequality, Branko Milanovic presents a bold new account of the dynamics that drive inequality on a global scale. Drawing on vast data sets and cutting-edge research, he explains the benign and malign forces that make inequality rise and fall within and among nations. He also reveals who has been helped the most by globalization, who has been held back, and what policies might tilt the balance toward economic justice. “The data [Milanovic] provides offer a clearer picture of great economic puzzles, and his bold theorizing chips away at tired economic orthodoxies.” —The Economist “Milanovic has written an outstanding book...Informative, wide-ranging, scholarly, imaginative and commendably brief. As you would expect from one of the world’s leading experts on this topic, Milanovic has added significantly to important recent works by Thomas Piketty, Anthony Atkinson and François Bourguignon...Ever-rising inequality looks a highly unlikely combination with any genuine democracy. It is to the credit of Milanovic’s book that it brings out these dangers so clearly, along with the important global successes of the past few decades. —Martin Wolf, Financial Times