In this lecture eminent China scholar David Shambaugh will discuss his new book  Where Great Powers Meet. Currently, the United States and China are engaged in a broad-gauged and global competition for power and influence. While this competition ranges across the entire world, it is centered in Asia — most notably in the critical sub-region of Southeast Asia.

In light of the post-fascist victory of FdI in the Italian election one might think right-wing populism is again on the rise. And we have seen other recent successes. Viktor Orbán has entrenched his power in Hungary. Marine Le Pen secured the best result in the second round of the French presidential elections as of yet. And this month, the Swedish SD achieved their record result securing a right-wing majority.

The world has continued to witness prosperity in terms of poverty reduction and well-being improvement, but one cannot overstate the importance of examining whether the improvement is evenly shared or is being inclusive to all. In this paper, we propose a general quantile-based approach based on absolute changes that allow assessing and robustly examining inclusiveness of well-being for non-monetary indicators that are bounded in nature and can have both attainment and shortfall representations.

Timely and disaggregated data are essential for effective policy-making, and achieving the ambitious goals outlined in Agenda 2030. To this date, over 30 countries launched national Multidimensional Poverty Indices (MPIs) to monitor SDG 1.2.2 and eradicate poverty in all its forms. In addition, figures on acute multidimensional poverty in over 100 developing countries are published regularly using the internationally comparable global Multidimensional Poverty Index. But there is a need to measure less acute forms of poverty, as well as to cover high income countries.

This seminar will explore the latest findings of the 2022 update of the global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI). Join us for a presentation of the results of this year’s report co-launched with the United Nations Development Programme on the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. The global MPI report provides updated internationally comparable figures and innovative analysis of multidimensional poverty in developing regions.

It is widely acknowledged that for efficient progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) their interlinkages have to be taken into account. The global Multidimensional Poverty Index is based on ten deprivations indicators each of which is aligned with specific SDGs. The overlap of these deprivations already figures prominently in the way poverty is measured, i.e. as multiple deprivation. In this paper we complement previous analyses with anovel account to explore how exactly deprivations are interlinked and how these interconnections vary across the developing world.

The continuing degradation of the environment, which constitutes a major threat to human life, urges scientists to find new reliable methods to measure the association between human well-being and the state of the environment. There is a clear nexus between human poverty and environmental issues. They have been identified as acute and urgent overlapping policy issues which demand good measures to address them jointly.