Working Papers

In Article 25 (1) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the United Nations recognized in 1948 the basic human right to “security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond ... control.” This paper examines how economic insecurity is related to, yet different from, poverty and inequality, why it matters for human well-being and how it has been changing in different countries around the world in recent years. The paper concludes with discussion of how economic insecurity has been and will be affected by the Covid-19 pandemic/recession.

Recent calls for more intense debate on and reforms to the international monetary system imply that the current system is unable to respond appropriately and adequately to challenges that have appeared, or become more acute, in recent years. This paper focuses on four such challenges: ensuring an orderly exit from global imbalances, facilitating more complementary adjustments between surplus and deficit countries without recessionary impacts, better supporting international trade by reducing currency volatility and better providing development and climate finance. After describing them, it proposes reforms to enable the international monetary system to better respond to these challenges…