United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Rising inequalities are a defining challenge of our times and a crucial obstacle to the realization of the SDGs. The need to accelerate steps towards the reduction of growing disparities within and among countries is well realised.  Responding to that need, this book aims to understand the types, drivers, consequences and impact of inequalities in broad contexts across groups and individuals, as well as societies and states. Defining inequality as the social, economic and political challenges of our time, the authors examine SDG10 to look ahead at how policy action might engage multiple stakeholders, involve diverse sectors and address gaps between policy and implementation to tackle inequalities and facilitate the advancement of the SDG agenda.

This book discusses the origins of wealth inequality and explains how societies can reform to avoid the catastrophe of inequality-induced social breakdown. It develops a theoretical and practical understanding of the principles behind the concept of ownership and property, complete with historical examples. It proposes a new research perspective focusing on how the problem of wealth concentration is ameliorated by cooperative and collaborative initiatives to enhance the public sphere, without derogating from the private. The book is based on research data compiled from taxation and household data to explore the theme that wealth inequality is made inevitable by possessive behaviour expressed in possessive language. It shows that while inequality is inescapable, we can adopt policies where resources are more efficiently and broadly distributed for public benefit. Such policies are directed towards encouraging voluntary, as opposed to compulsory, wealth transfer to achieve public good. The primary market for the book consists of academics and students from the fields of economics, including growth and developmental economics, law, sociology, history, business and international trade. It also provides a practical resource for government policy analysts wanting to develop a more detailed understanding of the role played by wealth inequality in a range of social problems.

From Sovereignty to Solidarity seeks to re-imagine human mobility in ways that are de-linked from national sovereignty. Using examples from around the world, the author examines contemporary practices of solidarity to illustrate what such a conceptualization of human mobility looks like. He suggests that urban and local scales, rather than the national scale, is a better way to frame human migration and belonging. The book ultimately proposes that solidarity, rather than sovereignty, offers an alternative approach to imagine how human mobility should, and already does, occur. This book will be relevant to upper-level undergraduate and graduate students in disciplines such as Migration Studies, Urban Studies, Human and Political Geography, and Refugee Studies. It is also relevant to researchers, development workers and human rights/environmental activists, and other intellectual practitioners.

Taxes on the wealthy are a topic sure to incite venomous rants from both right-wing and left-wing ideologues. The topic attracts conflicting interpretations and policy recommendations, and generates proposals for tax reform that consume political debate. All this activity takes place against an opaque backdrop of empirical evidence dealing with the distribution of wealth and income, and tax avoidance and tax evasion by corporations and wealthy individuals. Rethinking Wealth and Taxesexplores these problems and considers the possibilities for increasing taxes on wealth to address the increasingly unequal distribution of wealth, and income. Concerned with exploring the implications of globalization for government revenue policy and increasing inequality in wealth and income, it identifies the connection between ongoing inequality and the ability of the wealthy to avoid income taxes by exploiting differential treatment of capital income and wage income. The author explores the various ways in which the emergence of globalization has impacted the traditional national model of raising income tax revenue. He then offers policy recommendations that shift government revenue sources to taxes that are difficult for the wealthy to avoid and that better capture the goals of vertical and horizontal tax equity. This book will appeal to those directly involved in industry and public policy and may be used in university courses at all levels in public finance, financial economics, actuarial science and management. It will also be of interest to research libraries, individuals working in government and readers in the general public curious about topics such as 'the one percent'.

This open access book investigates the link between income inequality and socio-economic residential segregation in 24 large urban regions in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, and South America. It offers a unique global overview of segregation trends based on case studies by local author teams. The book shows important global trends in segregation, and proposes a Global Segregation Thesis. Rising inequalities lead to rising levels of socio-economic segregation almost everywhere in the world. Levels of inequality and segregation are higher in cities in lower income countries, but the growth in inequality and segregation is faster in cities in high-income countries. This is causing convergence of segregation trends. Professionalisation of the workforce is leading to changing residential patterns. High-income workers are moving to city centres or to attractive coastal areas and gated communities, while poverty is increasingly suburbanising. As a result, the urban geography of inequality changes faster and is more pronounced than changes in segregation levels. Rising levels of inequality and segregation pose huge challenges for the future social sustainability of cities, as cities are no longer places of opportunities for all.