The Stern Review on the Economic Effects of Climate Change

In a study of the economics of climate change commissioned by the British government, released on 30 October, the former World Bank chief economist Sir Nicholas Stern presents a vigorously argued case for early curtailment of greenhouse gas emissions and proposes mitigation strategies that appear to offer highly favorable benefit‐cost ratios. An excerpt from the Executive Summary of the Stern Review, concerned with the nature and magnitude of the deleterious economic consequences of anticipated climate change, is printed below. The principal scientific reviews of knowledge of climate change, its consequences, and mitigation strategies are the (roughly) quinquennial reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)—the work of hundreds of lead authors, subjected in turn to elaborate peer review and line‐by‐line scrutiny by interested governments. They represent a broad, though not total, expert consensus. The third IPCC assessment was issued in 2001; the fourth, already in draft, will be released next year. The Stern Review draws heavily on this scientific underpinning, but goes further than the IPCC exercise in computing economic values for the projected changes and costing out remedial policy responses. More forthright in style and emphatic in its conclusions, it reads as a resounding call to international action. The Review explores the implications of atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases being capped at 550ppm (parts per million), double the preindustrial level, an objective it argues is feasible. That concentration would be reached by 2050 at current emission rates, or by 2035 if emissions rise as expected. The resulting warming, it believes, would be 2‐5°C, roughly in accord with the IPCC's third‐assessment estimates (see the Documents section of PDR 27, no. 1 for the IPCC projections). The positive feedbacks identified in some recent studies, generated by processes such as release of methane from permafrost, could lead to still higher temperatures. The forecast effects described are by now familiar, though no less grim for being so: species extinctions, expanding disease zones, reductions in surface water availability, coastal flooding, ocean acidification, and so on. The Review translates these effects into economic losses, adjusting for risk, using Monte Carlo simulation applied to an integrated assessment model (the so‐called PAGE 2002 model). The exercise, requiring many heroic—and often contestable—assumptions, produces the most quoted figures in the report: that climate change “will reduce welfare by an amount equivalent to a reduction in consumption per head of between 5 and 20%”—now and into the future. The absolute magnitude of those projected economic losses is made arbitrarily large by their permanence. Typical benefit‐cost calculations applied to appraisal of development projects convert such long‐term trajectories into a present value using a discount rate comparable to a market interest rate or some (lower) assumed rate of time preference. The Stern Review, however, argues that any discounting is ethically inappropriate for this global issue: “if a future generation will be present, we suppose that it has the same claim on our ethical attention as the current one” (p. 31). The only exception is an allowance for the possibility that future generations are not present—through human extinction—which is held to justify a minuscule discount rate of 0.1 percent per annum (p. 161). The percentage economic losses from climate change appear less daunting if set against the recent pace of expansion in the world economy. Real per capita income growth since 1990 has averaged about 1.5 percent per year worldwide, and about 3 percent in developing countries. In such a regime, a 5 percent one‐time drop to a lower expansion path is no more than a two‐ or three‐year delay in attaining a given income level. For China and India, whose economies are doubling in size each decade, even a 20 percent reduction in income would be a mere hiccough on the path to affluence—hardly enough to motivate major shifts in lifestyle ambitions. The dire repercussions on global environments of a greenhouse warming at the upper end of the forecast range are poorly captured by those percentages. Demography has a marginal place in the Review. The underlying IPCC emission scenarios incorporate expected population growth, using the UN medium projections. Many of the climate‐change effects incur costs that are similarly magnified by population growth. One‐sixth of the world's population is “threatened” by water scarcities; 1 in 20 people may be displaced by a rising sea level; mortality may increase from vector‐borne diseases and from malnutrition linked to income losses. The later part of the Review is concerned with mitigation and adaptation strategies. It lays out an ambitious set of policies for transition to a low‐carbon economy that could stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations over the next several decades. By 2050, emissions would have to be 25 percent below today's and emissions per unit of GDP 75 percent below. In perhaps the most problematic part of the exercise the Review asserts that such cuts could be achieved at a cost of only around 1 percent of annual global GDP—implying that investment in mitigation should be strongly favored on straightforward economic grounds. (This figure, like others in the Review, is acknowledged to lie within a substantial envelope of uncertainty—here a range of ?1.0 percent to +3.5 percent of global GDP (p. 212), or, drawing on a wider range of models, ?4 percent to +15 percent (p. 241).) In the decades before the investment pays off, adverse consequences of the warming trends already underway must be dealt with by adaptation, such as through better disaster preparedness, lessening the vulnerability of infrastructure, and risk‐pooling measures. The excerpt is from pp. iii–iv and vi–xi. The full Stern Review (579 pages), the executive summary, and the commissioned background papers are available online at « http://www.hm‐treasury.gov.uk/independent_reviews/stern_review_economics_climate_change/sternreview_index.cfm ». A hard copy of the Review will be issued by Cambridge University Press.     

Why poverty remains high: The role of income growth,economic inequality,and changes in family structure, 1949–1999

After dramatic declines in poverty from 1950 to the early 1970s in the United States, progress stalled. This article examines the association between trends in poverty and income growth, economic inequality, and changes in family structure using three measures of poverty: an absolute measure, a relative measure, and a quasi-relative one. I found that income growth explains most of the trend in absolute poverty, while inequality generally plays the most significant role in explaining trends in relative poverty. Rising inequality in the 1970s and 1980s was especially important in explaining increases in poverty among Hispanics, whereas changes in family structure played a significant role for children and African Americans through 1990. Notably, changes in family structure no longer had a significant association with trends in poverty for any group in the 1990s.     

The United Nations on Levels and Trends of International Migration and Related Policies

Issues of international migration are drawing increasing attention not only from governments and their national constituencies but also from international organizations, notably from various components of the United Nations system. Better understanding of the causes of the flows of international migration and their relationship with development and answers to policy questions arising therefrom are, however, hampered by scarcity of up‐to‐date and reliable quantitative information concerning international migration. As a step toward remedying this gap, in March 2003 the Population Division of the United Nations issued a report, presumably the first of a series, titled International Migration Report 2002. A review essay by David Coleman discussing this publication appears in the book review section of the present issue of PDR. The bulk of this 323‐page document presents statistical profiles for more than 200 countries and territories and also for various regional aggregates. These summaries provide data or estimates (when available or feasible) on population, migrant stock, refugees, and remittances by migrant workers for 1990 and 2000, and on average annual net migration flows for 1990–95 and 1995–2000. These profiles also offer characterization of government views on policies relating to levels of immigration and emigration. According to the report, the total number of international migrants—those residing in a country other than where they were born—was 175 million in 2000, or about 3 percent of the world population. In absolute terms, this global number is about twice as large as it was in 1970, and exceeds the 1990 estimate by some 21 million. The introductory chapters of the report discuss problems in measuring international migration and summarize major trends in international migration policies since the mid‐1970s. An additional chapter reproduces a recent report of the Secretary‐General to the United Nations General Assembly on international migration. Reproduced below is much of the “Overview” section of the report (pp. 1–5). In addition to its published form (New York: United Nations, 2002, ST/ESA/SER.A/220), the full report is accessible on the Internet: http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/ittmig2002/ittmigrep2002.htm     

The US National Intelligence Council on the Changing Geopolitical Landscape

The National Intelligence Council, a body reporting to the Director of National Intelligence, draws on expertise from within and outside the US intelligence community to assess strategic developments bearing on national security. In addition to its classified reports (notably the National Intelligence Estimates) the Council also issues unclassified versions of some of its work. In December 2004 it released a report, Mapping the Global Future, the outcome of a year‐long study known as the 2020 Project, looking at geopolitical trends in the world over the medium term. Robert L. Hutchings, the NIC's then chairman, writes in a preface that this report “offers a range of possibilities and potential discontinuities, as a way of opening our minds to developments we might otherwise miss.” It differs from a preceding NIC exercise, Global Trends 2015 (2000), in the wider range of experts consulted—preparatory workshops were conducted in a number of countries—and in the heavier store it places on formal scenario development. While the underlying scenario‐building techniques employed are not spelled out in the document (some are described elsewhere on the NIC's website), four specific “fictional scenarios” are selected to enliven the report: Davos World—illustrating “how robust economic growth, led by China and India, … could reshape the globalization process”; Pax Americana—“how US predominance may survive the radical changes to the global political landscape and serve to fashion a new and inclusive global order”; A New Caliphate—“how a global movement fueled by radical religious identity politics could constitute a challenge to Western norms and values as the foundation of the global system”; and Cycle of Fear—proliferation of weaponry and terrorism “to the point that large‐scale intrusive security measures are taken to prevent outbreaks of deadly attacks, possibly introducing an Orwellian world.” (The quotes are from the report's executive summary.) The excerpt reproduced below comprises the section of the report headed “Rising Powers: The Changing Geopolitical Landscape,” omitting text boxes and charts. The summary table appended is taken from the beginning of the document. The full report is available at http://www.cia.gov/nic/NIC_globaltrend2020.html .     

Relative Cohort Size,Relative Income,and Married Women's Labor Force Participation: United States, 1968–2010

Relative cohort size—the ratio of young adults to prime‐age adults—and relative income—the income of young adults relative to their material aspirations—have experienced substantial changes over the past 40 years. Results here show that changes in relative cohort size explain about 60 percent of the declines in women's starting wage—both relative and absolute—in 1968–82, and 97 percent of its increase in 1982–2001. Relative income is hypothesized to affect a number of behavioral choices by young adults, including marriage, childbearing, and female labor force participation, as young people strive to achieve their desired standard of living. Older family income—the denominator in a relative income variable—increased by 59 percent between 1968 and 2000, and then declined by 9 percent. Its changes explain 47 percent of the increase in the labor force participation of white married women in their first 15 years out of school between 1970 and 1990, and 38 percent of the increase in hours worked in the same period. The study makes use of individual‐level measures of labor force participation and employs the lagged income of older families in a woman's year‐state‐race‐education group to instrument parental income and hence material aspirations.     

The impact of income inequality on self-rated general health: Evidence from a cross-national study

Previous studies report a strong negative association between income inequality and population health at the aggregate level. However, it is still in hot debate whether this ecological association indicates a genuine, causal effect of income inequality on health, as asserted by the Wilkinson hypothesis, or it simply reflects a nonlinear effect of individual income on health, as suggested by the absolute income hypothesis. Drawing data from the 2005 round of the World Values Survey, I analyze the relationship between individual income, income inequality, and self-rated general health in a multilevel framework. Results show no independent detrimental effect of country income inequality on individual self-rated general health. In contrast, self-rated general health is strongly associated with absolute material conditions both at the individual and at the country level. Therefore, this study gives more evidence to the absolute income hypothesis, i.e., the strong ecological association between income inequality and population health is more likely a reflection of the nonlinear effect of individual income on health rather than a genuine effect of income inequality.     

Multidimensional Poverty and Inequality: Insights from the Upper Blue Nile Basin,Ethiopia

As stated in the 2018 global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) report, Ethiopia has the second largest multidimensionally poor population in Africa (after Nigeria). The global MPI was created to measure household’s multiple deprivations, but little systematic study has been carried out on the application of MPI measures on a smaller scale and vis-à-vis other measures of poverty. In addition, most of the few existing studies ignore any measure of inequality amongst the multidimensionally poor. This study explored multidimensional poverty in three different drought-prone agro-ecological settings of the Upper Blue Nile basin, Ethiopia. A preliminary participatory exercise was carried out at the study sites to select important indicators and then a structured survey was administered to 390 systematically and randomly selected households. The Alkire–Foster method was used to analyse multidimensional poverty and verified it with Correlation Sensitive Poverty Index (CSPI). Multidimensional poverty incidence, adjusted head count ratio and inequality were significantly different between study sites (p?<?0.001). Results indicated a high incidence (88%, 82% and 80%), intensity (52%, 55% and 56%), MPI (46%, 45% and 45%) and inequality (53%, 60% and 63%) of poverty in Aba Gerima, Guder and Dibatie study sites, respectively. A high level of divergence was revealed between the MPI and CSPI in terms of identifying the poor. The living standard and land and livestock ownership dimensions contributed the most to MPI. The case study signifies the importance of inclusion of land and livestock indicators for the national MPI. Besides, it implies that researchers and policymakers need to account for smaller scale contextualised indicators and location differences when studying and designing anti-poverty interventions.

     

Importance Weighting in Client Satisfaction Measures: Lessons from the Life Satisfaction Literature

The linearisation approach to approximating variance of complex non-linear statistics is a well-established procedure. The basis of this approach is to reduce non-linear statistics to a linear form, justified on the basis of asymptotic properties of large populations and samples. For diverse cross-sectional measures of inequality such linearised forms are available, though the derivations involved can be complex. Replication methods based on repeated resampling of the parent sample provide an alternative approach to variance estimation of complex statistics from complex samples. These procedures can be computationally demanding but tend to be straightforward technically. Perhaps the simplest and the best established among these is the Jackknife Repeated Replication (JRR) method. Recently the JRR method has been shown to produce comparable variance for cross-sectional poverty measures (Verma and Betti in J Appl Stat 38(8):1549–1576, 2011); and it has also been extended to estimate the variance of longitudinal poverty measures for which Taylor approximation is not currently available, or at least cannot be easily derived. This paper extends the JRR methodology further to the estimation of variance of differences and averages of inequality measures. It illustrates the application of JRR methodology using data from four waves of the EU-SILC for Spain. For cross-sectional measures design effect can be decomposed into the effect of clustering and stratification, and that of weighting under both methodologies. For differences and averages of these poverty measures JRR method is applied to compute variance and three separate components of the design effect—effect of clustering and stratification, effect of weighting, and an additional effect due to correlation of different cross-sections from panel data—combining these the overall design effect can be estimated.     

The European 'Welfare Mix': Institutional Configuration and Distributive Outcome in Sweden and the European Union. A Longitudinal and Comparative Perspective

This paper explores the institutional configuration (the three welfare delivery systems: market, welfare state, family) and its distributional correlates (income inequality; poverty rates; inequality related to social cleavages such as social class, generation, gender, region and family). The analysis has a twofold perspective: comparative (comparing 14 EU member states) and longitudinal (comparing Sweden 1975--1995), using nations as statistical units. The European union appears to be divided in three distinct and homogeneous clusters: a Nordic cluster (Sweden, Denmark, Finland) exhibiting large social expenses, high labour market participation and weak family ties. Its distributional features are low income inequality, poverty rates and class inequality, but high levels of inequality between generations; a southern cluster (Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal) characterised by lower welfare provisions, low employment, but strong traditional families. Its distributional features are high levels of income inequality, poverty and class inequality, but low levels of generational inequality; a central European cluster in intermediate position. UK joins the southern cluster with high levels of income inequality, poverty and class inequality.     

An Italian Statement on International Migration

Increasing realization of the implications of persisting below‐replacement fertility in Europe—shrinking absolute numbers combined with a rising proportion of the elderly—is giving new salience to policy considerations regarding immigration in the countries most affected by low fertility. The recent United Nations report on “replacement migration” (see the Documents section in the June 2000 PDR) highlighted the issue through illustrative calculations showing the size of immigrant streams that would be needed for achieving specified demographic targets in selected lowfertility countries, given continuation of present fertility and mortality trends. For example, the UN report suggested that in Italy—which has one of the lowest fertility rates in the world—maintaining a constant population over time would require a net influx of some 12.6 million immigrants during the next 50 years, and maintaining a constant labor forceage population (ages 15–64) would require a net inflow of 18.6 million. Yet immigration policy in Western Europe has become increasingly restrictive during the last quartercentury, and the official policy stance that regulating immigration is strictly within the domain of a country's sovereign right has been assiduously maintained. (International treaty obligations qualify that right in the case of bona fide asylum seekers; however, the definition of that category is also subject to the discretion of the receiving countries.) Thus, although within the European Union national borders are open to EU citizens, the power of regulating immigration from outside the EU is retained by the individual countries rather than subject to EU‐wide decisions. Suggestions coming from the developing countries to follow up the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development with an intergovernmental conference on international migration and development were set aside by the potential immigrant‐receiving countries as overly contentious. A statement by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Italy, Lamberto Dini, delivered at the 55th General Assembly of the United Nations, 13 September 2000, may be a sign of a notable shift in official approaches to immigration policy by at least one EU member state. The statement, in a departure from the practice of touching lightly upon a wide range of issues in international affairs, typical in high‐level ministerial speeches given at that UN forum, is devoted essentially to a single topic: international migration. It characterizes migration “between or within continents” as an international problem and advocates “coordinated and integrated” instruments in seeking a solution. It suggests that “today, with a declining birth rate and an aging population, Europe needs a strategy that embraces the complex process of integrating people from different regions of the world.” The rules for international migration, the statement claims, should be set in a global framework, such as provided by the United Nations. In the “age of globalization,”“a solidarity pact is needed to find the best and most effective way of balancing the supply and demand of labor.” With the omission of opening and closing ceremonial passages and a brief comment on the problem of debt relief, the statement is reproduced below.     

中国城乡弱相对贫困测算及时空演变：2012—2018

相对贫困的识别和测算是瞄准贫困人口和制定减贫政策的基础,但常用于识别相对贫困人口的比例收入法和测度相对贫困程度的FGT指数在理论基础、比例设定和贫困性质方面遭到质疑。采用基于社会融入成本理论的弱相对贫困人口识别方法,及与弱相对贫困线相适应的分层可加综合贫困指数,且考虑与现阶段我国绝对贫困线衔接性及国际标准的可比性,使用2012—2018年中国家庭追踪调查(CFPS)数据估计了中国城乡收入(消费)弱相对贫困线,并测算分析了中国城乡收入(消费)弱相对贫困程度及时空演变特征。研究表明,基于弱相对贫困线构造的综合贫困指数兼顾绝对贫困和相对贫困,可以避免传统FGT指数分别测度绝对贫困和相对贫困时动态变化趋势出现分歧的问题,可更为直观地综合评估经济增长和扶贫政策的减贫效应。无论城乡,尽管不平等导致相对贫困始终处于高位水平,但绝对贫困更大的下降幅度使得中国收入(消费)弱相对贫困程度仍呈稳健下降趋势。从社会融入成本角度出发,建议未来考虑住房成本和子女养育成本,分家庭类型进一步细化弱相对贫困标准。本研究有助于进一步分类瞄准弱相对贫困人口,监测弱相对贫困程度演变并综合评估减贫效应。     

Estimation of Disaggregate-Level Poverty Incidence in Odisha Under Area-Level Hierarchical Bayes Small Area Model

Sustainable development goal-1 of the United Nations is to end poverty in all its forms everywhere. The estimates of poverty related parameters obtained from large scale sample survey are often available at large domain level (e.g. state level). But, poverty rates are not uniformly distributed across the regions. The regional variations are masked in such large domain level estimates. However, for monitoring the progress of poverty alleviation programmes aimed at reduction of poverty often require micro or disaggregate level estimates. The traditional survey estimation approaches are not suitable for generating the reliable estimates at this level because of sample size problem. It is the main endeavor of Small Area Estimation (SAE) approach to produce micro level statistics with acceptable precision without incurring any extra cost and utilizing existing survey data. In this study, the Hierarchical Bayes approach of SAE has been applied to generate reliable and representative district level poverty incidence for the State of Odisha in India using the Household Consumer Expenditure Survey 2011–2012 data of National Sample Survey Office and linked with Population Census 2011. The results show the precise performance of model based estimates generated by SAE method to a greater extent than the direct survey estimates. A poverty map has also been produced to observe the spatial inequality in poverty distribution.

     

The World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalization: On the Cross‐Border Movement of People

The globalization of the world economy can be measured in terms of increases in international trade, greater levels of foreign investment and technology transfers, and the liberalization of financial markets. Accompanying and facilitating these trends have been institutional innovations and reforms, creating regimes under which international economic relationships can be managed and disputes resolved. The role of the World Trade Organization is an evident case in point. The rising scale of international migration can also be seen as a globalizing trend. Here, however, with the exception of the special case of refugees, there is no governance regime in place or in prospect at the international level. Occasional past efforts by UN agencies to stimulate formal discussion of what such a regime might look like have led nowhere: countries are simply unwilling to contemplate any weakening of their sovereign right to control entry. Proposing how to fill this perceived lacuna in the international system is one of the tasks on the agenda of the Global Commission on International Migration. The Commission, an independent body set up in 2003 by a small group of UN member states, plans to present a report to the UN Secretary‐General in mid‐2005. In the meantime, the subject has been explored by another group—the World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalization. This commission was set up by the International Labour Office in 2002. It was co‐chaired by Tarja Halonen, president of Finland, and Benjamin William Mkapa, president of Tanzania. Its 24 other members included economists (among them Deepak Nayyar, Hernando de Soto, and Joseph Stiglitz), politicians, and business and labor leaders, as well as a number of ex‐officio ILO representatives. After several meetings and an extensive series of consultations held during 2002 and 2003, its report, A Fair Globalization: Creating Opportunities for All, was issued in February 2004. The report argues that the benefits of globalization must be more equitably distributed. To this end, the globalizing trends in the world economy should be matched by similar advances in social and political institutions. One of the features of the existing imbalance is that “goods and capital move much more freely across borders than people do.” In addition to the many other recommendations the Commission has for what it terms the governance of globalization are proposals on the management of international migration. “Fair rules for trade and capital,” the Commission argues, “need to be complemented by fair rules for the movement of people.” The long‐run objective should be “a multilateral framework for immigration laws and consular practices˙˙˙that would govern cross‐border movement of people,” paralleling “the multilateral frameworks that already exist, or are currently under discussion, concerning the cross‐border movement of goods, services, technology, investment and information.” The Commission's thinking on migration is in some respects reminiscent of the views of the ILO's first director, Albert Thomas, in the days of the League of Nations. Writing in 1927, Thomas envisioned, if only as a distant ideal, “some sort of supreme supernational authority which would regulate the distribution of population on rational and impartial lines, by controlling and directing migration movements and deciding on the opening‐up or closing of countries to particular streams of immigration.” (See the Archives section of PDR 9, no. 4.) The excerpt below consists of §428–§446 of the report, a section titled The cross‐border movement of people.     

SHORT REVIEWS

Books reviewed in this article: Rashmi Dube Bhatnagar , Renu Dube , and Reena Dube Female Infanticide in India: A Feminist Cultural History Charles Blackorby , Walter Bossert , and David Donaldson Population Issues in Social Choice Theory, Welfare Economics, and Ethics Josef Gugler (ed .) World Cities Beyond the West: Globalization, Development and Inequality Panel on Urban Population Dynamics , National Research Council , M. R. Montgomery , R. Stren , B. Cohen , and H. E. Reed (eds .) Cities Transformed: Demographic Change and Its Implications in the Developing World UNAIDS/WHO AIDS, Epidemic Update: December 2005 The World Bank Improving Health, Nutrition, and Population Outcomes in Sub‐Saharan Africa: The Role of the World Bank     

The Role of Family Behaviors in Determining Income Distribution: The Case of South Korea

In this article, we examined what has contributed to the worsening income inequality and poverty between 1996 and 2011 in South Korea. We used a rank-preserving exchange method and a conditional reweighting method to assess the roles of family behaviors—including female labor force participation and family structure—characteristics of household heads, and men’s earnings. The results showed that the change in men’s earnings was a dominant factor in accounting for the increasing income inequality and poverty. The change in age and education among household heads also contributed significantly to the worsening income distribution. The change in family structure mainly affected the income disparity among lower-income families and increased poverty. The rise in women’s labor force participation improved the income distribution but not considerably. The distributional roles of family have not worked to prevent or reverse the worsening income distribution in the past few decades in South Korea.     

The Poverty-Growth-Inequality Triangle: Asia 1960s to 2010s

The main objective of this paper is to disentangle the poverty-growth-inequality triangle for Asia, its sub-regions and individual economies by constructing poverty and inequality profiles, decomposing poverty changes and modelling inequality. Due to a shortage of unit record data, analytical techniques are developed for estimating the poverty headcount ratio and regional inequality with minimum data requirements. Analytical results confirm significant reductions in poverty across the board due to fast growth, although the benign effect of growth on poverty was offset by worsening distributions in many economies. Furthermore, the poverty-reducing effect of growth has been diminishing over time and converging to 0 for many countries. Also, the cost of rising inequality in Asia was found to be surprisingly large in terms of missed poverty reduction. Looking ahead, Asia is expected to eradicate abject poverty soon but likely to continue facing high inequality, particularly income gaps between economies.

     

Poverty,Infectious Disease,and Environmental Degradation as Threats to Collective Security: A UN Panel Report

Among the documents to be considered at the 2005 World Summit at the UN General Assembly in September is the report of the Secretary‐General's High‐Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change. The Panel, chaired by Anand Panyarachun, former Prime Minister of Thailand, brought together 16 prominent individuals to assess current threats to peace and security and the institutional capacity, especially within the UN, to respond to them. Its report, A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility, was issued in December 2004. Most of the publicity surrounding the report focused on its recommendations for UN reform, especially its proposals for expansion of the Security Council. The first two‐thirds of the document, however, is concerned with the substance of collective security issues and prevention strategies. Defining a threat to international security as “any event or process that leads to large‐scale death or lessening of life chances and undermines States as the basic unit of the international system,” the Panel identified six clusters of existing or anticipated threats: Economic and social threats (in particular, poverty, infectious disease, and environmental degradation); inter‐State conflict; internal conflict (civil war, genocide, other large‐scale atrocities); nuclear, radiological, chemical, and biological weapons; terrorism; and transnational organized crime. The section of the report (paragraphs 44–73) treating economic and social threats, titled “Poverty, infectious disease and environmental degradation,” is reproduced below. Paragraph numbers have been omitted.     

Volatile Places,Volatile Times: Predicting Revolutionary Situations with Nations’ Governance and Fragility Indicators

In the last decade, Mexico, the second largest economy in Latin America, has seen high poverty, inequality, and increasing homicide rates, which has led to widespread fear of crime. Two important challenges to understand the elevated levels of fear of crime are the lack of agreement on how to measure it and the debate on whether it responds to actual crime or to a general feeling of vulnerability associated with poverty. Moreover there is little research in Mexico examining the complex influence of social context at the municipality level, on the relationship between person-level characteristics and fear of crime. Using Mexico’s 2015 National Survey of Victimization the goal of the study is to estimate a two-level hierarchical regression analysis combining the effects of person-level predictors and municipality level context variables to explain fear of crime in Mexico´s urban population. Our results show that some person level attributes—victimization, incivilities, trust, police effectiveness, and collective organization—are consistently associated with the three domains of fear of crime: feelings of insecurity, perceptions of risk, and avoidance behaviors. The study shows that homicide rates at the municipality level are directly associated with feelings of insecurity and avoidance behaviors. In addition, high multidimensional poverty and inequality at the municipality level amplified the rate by which incivilities affect perceptions of risk. Unexpectedly, collective efficacy at the municipality level and collective organization to solve crime at the individual level were positive and significant predictors for fear of crime in Mexico.     

Is Inequality a Latent Construct? An Assessment of Economic Inequality Indicators and Their Relation with Social Cohesion in Europe

In this article, we analyse the relation between different economic inequality indicators and social cohesion. Previous research usually narrows down economic inequality to income inequality, or distinguishes several types of economic inequality. Little attention has until now been given to how different aspects of economic inequality might be related to each other and can have an effect on social cohesion. This article analyses several indicators of economic inequality and makes a distinction between indicators measuring income inequality, poverty, economic strain and unequal distributions of wealth. Arguing that these indicators represent different aspects of inequality, we hypothesise that they cannot be reduced to one latent concept of inequality and have specific relations with social cohesion. In order to test this hypothesis, we conducted an exploratory factor analysis. This resulted in two different factors: one associated with economic hardship, and one associated with imbalances in market outcomes. This would imply that inequality indicators can be classified into two underlying concepts. Secondly, we related the factor scores of the two latent concepts to the social cohesion indicators via regression analyses. This paper focuses on European countries and uses pooled data from the European Social Survey (period 2006–2012), in combination with macro-level data drawn from the OECD, Eurostat and the World Bank. The results demonstrate that the strength of the link between inequality and citizens’ attitudes depends on the type of inequality indicator we analyse: only the factor economic deprivation can be significantly linked to social cohesion.